They are the lovers of law and order who observe the law
when the government breaks it.
Among human beings, the judge whose words seal the fate of a man
furthest into eternity is not he who merely pronounces the verdict
of the law, but he, whoever he may be, who, from a love of truth,
and unprejudiced by any custom or enactment of men, utters a true
opinion or sentence concerning him. He it is that sentences him.
Whoever can discern truth has received his commission from a higher
source than the chiefest justice in the world who can discern only
law. He finds himself constituted judge of the judge. Strange that
it should be necessary to state such simple truths!
I am more and more convinced that, with reference to any public
question, it is more important to know what the country thinks of it
than what the city thinks. The city does not think much. On any
moral question, I would rather have the opinion of Boxboro' than of
Boston and New York put together. When the former speaks, I feel as if
somebody had spoken, as if humanity was yet, and a reasonable being
had asserted its rights- as if some unprejudiced men among the
country's hills had at length turned their attention to the subject,
and by a few sensible words redeemed the reputation of the race. When,
in some obscure country town, the farmers come together to a special
town-meeting, to express their opinion on some subject which is vexing
the land, that, I think, is the true Congress, and the most
respectable one that is ever assembled in the United States.
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