Book Description

Excerpt from The Mercersburg Quarterly Review, 1854, Vol. 6 We must not be surprised at the severity and even tyranni cal rigor with which the lessons of subordination were inculca ted. Learned they must be, at any cost, as the indispensable prerequisites to human liberty. And the miseries of the age are attributable not so much to the spirit of the history of the times, as to the mad and determined opposition of blind law lessness. The individual must yield to the historic progress of the age, or be crushed beneath its resistless power. Hence was it that government assumed an arbitrary character, which made a reaction necessary in after times. I repeat it, we must not be surprised at the severity and even cruelty with which the governments of the times were characterized. Even in our own times the principle involved, is approved, and in this age and country finds a practical illus tration. The laws of our government are imperious in their demands, and insist upon obedience with the severest of sanc tions. Life itself is held to be a subordinate interest. And the government of these United States, mild and humane as it is, will not hesitate to assert its majesty and the supremacy of its laws at the expense, if needs be, of millions of treasure, and rivers of human blood. So too in the family; the child that submits not to the authority therein lodged, lays himself oh noxious to the severest penalty which it is in its province to in flict. The reduction then, of the elements of unbridled law lessness, as they confronted the institutions of past history, called forth that terrible rigor which the historic page narrates, and it is not saying too much when we declare that milder measures would not have been adequate to the task. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.