dertook, a short time ago, to enlighten the people of that city and of the nation generally, by a discourse on this particular subject. He was a little less modest than he might be, in what he had to say of "the frantic declamations of the pulpit," and we are the less inclined to engage in a controversy with him on that account. We only advert to his argument because it is a convenience to have some presentation of the question on that side, which is not from us, and can fitly be responsible for itself.

As a general thing, legal questions will be more adequately stated by the legal profession; but when the question stated, or the subject matter discussed, does not belong to the law at all, the mere claim of a legal jurisdiction gives no special capacity for it, and no special title to respect.

We undertake, then, to say that the law has nothing whatever to do with loyalty, and that it is not, in any sense, a legal subject. It stands on the same footing with patriotism, honor, and bravery-the law has no definitions for it, and never had; takes no jurisdiction of it. The subject is purely moral, lying in the field of right sentiment and religion; just like other matters that are analogous in some of the other relations of life. Thus a man is honorable, when he is true to his own personal convictions; filial, when he is faithful and dutiful to parents; pious, when he is obedient and true to God; and in just the same way he is loyal when he is devoted and true to his country. And the law has nothing more to do with him in one case than in the others. There is no legal definition of honor, none of filial virtue, none of piety, and there is no more any such definition of loyalty.

The English common law makes a distinction between what it rather paradoxically calls "imperfect obligations" and those which are perfect; meaning, by the imperfect, those which are too far-reaching, and deep, and subtle, and spiritual, in one word, perfect, to be administered by the clumsy faculty of human tribunals; and, by the perfect, those which are single, and simple, and superficial enough to be maintained by the short perception of human evidences and judgments. Ninetynine one-hundredths of the duties of life, and probably a much

larger proportion, belong to what are called, by the conceit of the common law, imperfect obligations; that is, to the class which are so perfect that God only can administer them, because only He can trace the motives, distinguish the evidences, and settle the judgments by which their violations will be fitly redressed. Honesty and dishonesty, for example, kindness and unkindness, truth and untruth, patriotic and unpatriotic action, the civil law can do nothing with these and a thousand other like obligations, save when the relation passes into some outward act that is a personal or public wrong, and can be investigated by human testimony. Thus, if the dishonesty takes the shape of a fraud, if the unkindness takes the shape of cruelty to animals, or to one's children, if the untruth passes into slander or perjury, if the defect of patriotism runs to an act of conspiracy with the enemies of the country, then the civil law finds a case within its narrow jurisdiction, and is able to undertake the matter of redress-redressing, however, the fraud never as dishonesty, the cruelty never as unkindness, the perjury never as untruth, the conspiracy with enemies never as a breach of patriotism. Exactly so it is with loyalty. It belongs to the class of imperfect obligations, such as God only can administer, and the civil law has never anything to do with it, till the disloyalty runs to some act of public treason. And then it punishes the disloyalty as treason, never as disloyalty. With that, as such, it has never anything to do, more than with dishonor, envy, covetousness, uncharitableness, anger, hatred, revenge, censoriousness; for which it has no definitions, and concerning which it has neither principles nor penalties.

So stands this matter of loyalty as before the law; it is wholly outside of the law, recognized and recognizable only by the law of God. Therefore when this gentleman of the law, annoyed by the suspicion, or supposed imputation, of disloyalty, comes into the field challenging any one to give him a definition of it—that is, a proper, legal definition-protesting that he will not have this epithet shot at him as a "missile," unless by some one who can tell him, in good legal definition, what he means by it! the brave air of confidence he assumes is

much less imposing than it might be. It is much as if some one should charge him with being a liar, or a coward, and he should reply, what then is your legal definition of a liar? and what of a coward? expecting to be triumphantly acquitted till the said legal definition is given! It will occur to almost any one that a great many very bad vices and wicked delinquencies could be sheltered, as easily, in the same manner.

But there is less to be made of. this, for the fact that he is bold enough to make out the definition himself which he thus peremptorily demands; and for this it is that we are particularly indebted to him and to the assistance he contributes by a legal statement of the subject. It will be understood beforehand that the definition given depends, of course, in some way, on the Constitution; for there is no so ready way of excusing the vice of disloyalty, or any other vice, as to hold the Constitution before it-are not all the vices Constitutional? He says, "the true conditions of American loyalty are to be found in the law of the land, in the duties flowing from the Constitution of our country." Again, "no duty of loyalty can possibly be predicated of any claim that is not founded in the supreme law of the land." He cites accordingly from the Constitution what, in his view, concludes the argument. "This Constitution and the laws of the United States, which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land."

Anything then is loyal which is constitutional, or supreme law under the Constitution; anything disloyal which is unconstitutional, or against the supreme law. What a conclusion this, to be set to the credit of the law, or to stand for the defense of society! As if any citizen could not do the very worst, and wickedest, and most detestable, and really most mischievously disloyal things against the government, in a way that is perfectly constitutional and violates, in fact, no law whatever. Besides, if the Constitution and the supreme law are, in this manner, "conditions of loyalty," the conclusion appears to follow that whoever violates the Constitution, or the supreme law under it, is ipso facto disloyal; that every one who takes a

bribe, for example, or an extortious fee, or sails without a clearance, or smuggles a piece of goods, or does not duly execute a legal process, or connives at a process which is fraudulent, is equally chargeable with disloyalty on that account! True he may be a very disorderly person in these things, a great violator of the laws. But how many thousands have we that have been violating the laws of their country, in one way or another, every month and week, and perhaps day of their lives, who are yet offering even their bodies for their country on the field of battle? Doubtless they would be much better men and truer patriots, if they had been more conscientious subjects; but there is no reason whatever to conclude against their loyalty, in the fact that they sometimes break the supreme law. If they so far violate the law as to become traitors, every traitor is, of course, disloyal; but not every disloyal person is a traitor, neither is any violation of the law, short of treason, a necessary proof of disloyalty. It may be such a proof or it may

not.

Loyalty then is no subject of law or legal definition. It belongs entirely to the moral department of life. It is what a man thinks and feels and contrives, not as being commanded, but of his own accord, for his country and his country's honor -his great sentiment, his deep and high devotion, the fire of his habitual or inborn homage to his country's welfare. It goes before all constitutions, and goes by the letter of all statutes, to do and suffer, out of the spontaneous liberties of right feeling, what the petty constructions and laggard judgments of the State cannot find how to compel. It does not measure itself by what the Constitution or the laws prescribe. It has no art of contriving, for itself and others, how to hide from the country behind the Constitution. It loves what the Constitution loves, and keeps it only the more rationally, that it will even die for its objects; when to die pleading the letter on the side of its enemies, it would only deem a mockery to it and its objects too. Doubtless it is something to stand by the Constitution and to faithfully keep the laws. In ordinary times, one might naturally enough give it as the definition of a good citizen. 'But genuine loyalty is in a higher key, at such a time as this. One may even be a great stickler for the Con

stitution, at such a time, and be only one of the most pestilent movers of sedition-more poisonously disloyal than he could be in the open renunciation of his allegiance. The loyal citizen, at such a time, do nothing but what the Constitution or supreme law of the country requires of him! Why the supreme law requires not one of the duties that are so genuinely great and true in loyalty; to volunteer body and life for the country; to stand fast when leaders are incompetent and armies reel away in panic before the foe; to send off to the field, as bravely consenting women do, husbands, sons, and brothers, the props and protectors of home; to wrestle day and night in prayer, as Christian souls are wont, bearing the nation as their secret burden, when, for sex, or age, or infirmity, they cannot do more; to come forward as protectors and helpers of the children made fatherless; to give money and work and prepare expeditions of love to mitigate the hardships of the wounded in their hospitals; to vote with religious fidelity for what will help and save the country, rising wholly above the mercenary motives and selfish trammels of party-why the supreme law requires not one of these, nor, in fact, anything else that belongs to a loyal and great soul's devotion; how then is it the measure and bound of loyalty?

The mistake at this point, of those gentlemen who come forward to instruct us in the legal definitions of loyalty, is that that they conceive it to be the same thing as keeping allegiance; confounding, thus, the tamest and lowest of all modes of political virtue with the highest and noblest, the legal with the moral, compulsion with impulse. What can be a lower style of citizenship than that of a man who does not, or it may be dares not, break allegiance?

But if the loyal man goes higher and does more than simply keep the Constitution and the laws, he will at least do that, some one may urge-what then but disloyal is any man, of any sphere, who breaks, or even lets go, the Constitution? To go over this whole field and handle the question exhaustively would occupy more space than is now permitted; we can only suggest the fact that constitutions are made to carry on government, not to carry back, rescue, redintegrate, government;