Liberty and Law

“The world no longer has a choice between force and law,” said General Eisenhower, “if civilization is to survive, it must choose the rule of law.”

“A free society cannot remain free,” wrote one writer, “unless the overwhelming majority of citizens restrain [themselves] . . . If men don’t restrain themselves internally, then they must do so externally. With external restraint . . . comes the decline of liberty . . . a free society can’t function without . . . internal discipline . . . Without moral restraint, men are no longer men.”¹ Some are “attempting to spread a philosophy that ‘If you don’t like a law, refuse to serve your country.'”² But the right to enjoy the protection of law carries the obligation to respect and keep the law. The right to enjoy the privileges and protection of a country carries with it the obligation to serve the country. We must have “a genuine revival of respect for law and orderly processes,” said an eminent jurist, “a reawakening of individual responsibility . . . a new impatience with those who violate laws . . . An ordered society cannot exist if every man may determine which laws he will obey . . .”³ “No nation can remain free,” said President Kennedy, “unless its people cherish their freedoms. Law is the strongest link between man and freedom . . .”⁴ “The curse of ages will rest upon you,” said John Mitchell Mason one hundred years ago, “. . . if ever you surrender to . . . domestic lawlessness the precious liberties for which . . . your fathers bled.”⁶ And, said Tacitus some two thousand years ago: “They will be vanquished by their vices as easily as by force of arms.”⁷ “Let reverence of the law be breathed by every mother to the lisping babe . . .;” said Abraham Lincoln. “Let it be taught in schools, . . . let it be written in primers, spelling books, and almanacs; let it be preached from pulpits, and proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice; let it become the political religion of the nation.”⁸ We would reaffirm this basic fact: that we believe in serving our country, and in “obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law”⁹⎯without which there is no liberty. Finally it comes down to a question of character, without which there is no freedom.