An enactment, then, which in ordinary language is called a Coercion Act, has one or both of the two following characteristics.[25] It is an Act which either enforces some rule of law (e.g., the law that tenants must pay their rent, or that trades unionists must not molest artisans who accept lower wages than the scale prescribed by the union), which does not command the moral assent of the society or people among whom it is enforced, or else constrains obedience to law by some exceptional and arbitrary mode of procedure.  Now the general prejudice against an Act which has either or both of these characteristics is within certain limits justifiable on grounds of good sense.  Laws derive three-fourths of their force not from the fears of law-breakers, but from the assent of law-keepers; and legislation should, as a rule, correspond with the moral sentiment of the people.  The maxim quid leges sine moribus, though it should always be balanced by the equally important maxim quid mores sine legibus, is one which no legislator dares neglect with impunity, and a law permanently at variance with wide moral feeling needs repeal or modification.  It is also true that exceptional and arbitrary legislation is, simply because it is exceptional and arbitrary, open to suspicion.  If it be desirable that personal liberty should be protected by the writ of Habeas Corpus, a suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act is on the face of it an evil.  If it is not desirable that officers of the army should suddenly and without legal training exercise the power of judges, the establishment of martial law is in itself a great, though it may be a necessary calamity.  Legislation, which has received the odious name of coercion, has frequently (though not always) exhibited one or both of the characteristics which render it fairly obnoxious to that designation.  The objection, therefore, to Coercion Acts is on the face of it not unreasonable.  What are the inferences which the objection supports is, of course, quite a different matter, and shall be considered in its due place.

It is most important, however, to note that the valid opposition to so-called Coercion Acts may and ought to be greatly mitigated by careful adherence to two maxims which are obvious, but are often neglected.

A Coercion Act in the first place, should be aimed, not at the direct enforcement of rules opposed to popular opinion, but at the punishment of offences which, though they may be indirectly connected with dislike of an unpopular law or with opposition to rights (for instance, of landowners) not sanctioned by popular opinion, are deeds in themselves condemned by the human conscience.  Deliberate breaches of contract, insults to women and children, the murder or torture of witnesses who have given truthful evidence in support of a conviction for crime, brutal cruelty to cattle, may be methods of popular vengeance, or the sanctions which enforce an agrarian code; but one may feel certain that the man who breaks his word, who tortures or murders his neighbour or who huffs cattle, knows himself to be not only a criminal, but a sinner, and that the law, which condemns him to punishment, though it may excite temporary outcry, can rely on the ultimate sanction of the popular conscience.