The Judge who, in questions of divorce, has trifled with the sanctity of the marriage tie—­who, in matters of property has decided unjustly, and taken bribes—­in capital cases has so dealt judgment as to send innocent men to the gallows—­may cry out, “If you don’t like me, impeach me.”  But will impeachment restore the dead to life, or the husband to his defamed wife?  Would the community consider his submission to impeachment as equivalent to the keeping of his oath of office, and thenceforward view him as an honest, truth-speaking, unperjured man?  It is idle to suppose so.  Yet the interests committed to some of our officeholders’ keeping, are more important often than even those which a Judge controls.  And we must remember that men’s ideas of right always differ.  To admit such a principle into the construction of oaths, if it enable one man to do much good, will enable scoundrels who creep into office to do much harm, “according to their consciences.”  But yet the rule, if it be admitted, must be universal.  Liberty becomes, then, matter of accident.

OBJECTION V.

I shall resign whenever a case occurs that requires me to aid in returning a fugitive slave.

ANSWER.  “The office-holder has promised active obedience to the Constitution in every exigency which it has contemplated and sought to provide for.  If he promised, not meaning to perform in certain cases, is he not doubly dishonest?  Dishonest to his own conscience in promising to do wrong, and to his fellow-citizens in purposing from the first to break his oath, as he knew they understood it?  If he had sworn, not regarding anything as immoral which he bound himself to do, and afterwards found in the oath something against his conscience of which he was not at first aware, or if by change of views he had come to deem sinful what before he thought right, then doubtless, by promptly resigning, he might escape guilt.  But is not the case different, when among the acts promised are some known at the time to be morally wrong?  ‘It is a sin to swear unto sin,’ says the poet, although it be, as he truly adds, ’a greater sin to keep the sinful oath.’”

The captain has no right to put to sea, and resign when the storm comes.  Besides what supports a wicked government more than good men taking office under it, even though they secretly determine not to carry out all its provisions?  The slave balancing in his lonely hovel the chance of escape, knows nothing of your secret reservations, your future intentions.  He sees only the swarming millions at the North ostensibly sworn to restore him to his master, if he escape a little way.  Perchance it is your false oath, which you don’t mean to keep, that makes him turn from the attempt in despair.  He knows you only—­the world knows only by your actions, not your intentions, and those side with his master.  The prayer which he lifts to Heaven, in his despair, numbers you rightly among his oppressors.