Another of those great ideas, ova which Moses founded the Hebrew government, was union.
I refer here, not so much to those civil ties which bound the people together in one body politic, as to that oneness of hearts, opinions, and manners, which forms the strongest bond of society, and is the firmest rampart of its defense. This sympathy of souls, and the interchange of social charities springing from it, though not the primary object, was yet an excellent incidental advantage, of the equal distribution of property, heretofore noticed. The nation was thus composed of a brotherhood of hardy yeomen, no one of whom could become either very rich or very poor, or could have anything in his outward circumstances greatly to excite the envy or the contempt of the others. How well suited such a condition of things was to make solid friendships, let the opinions of all antiquity, from Aristotle to Cicero, as well as those of every succeeding age, attest.
The system of education, in vogue among the Hebrew people, tended powerfully to the same result. To this cause Josephus, with much plausibility, traces that unanimity of sentiment concerning God and morals, which, he says, so remarkably distinguished his nation that even the women and servants spake the same things.
To the same effect was the incessant inculcation of kindness and charity, not only towards one another, but also to strangers, enforced by the oft repeated admonition, "Ye know the heart of a stranger, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt."1 "If," says the venerable patriarch, whose history, there is reason to believe, Moses introduced to the knowledge of his countrymen, if he was not himself the author of it, "if I have withheld the poor from their desire, or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail; if I have eaten my morsel alone, and the fatherless have not eaten thereof; if I have seen any perish for want of clothing, or any poor without covering; if I did despise the cause of my man-servant or my maid-servant, when they contended with me; what then shall I do when God riseth up; and when he visiteth, what shall I answer him? Did not he that made me in the womb, make him? and did not one fashion us?"2 How beautifully does this acknowledgment of brotherhood with paupers and bondmen, from one of the most illustrious princes of his age, and this warm gush of charity towards every creature, wearing the human form, and crushed beneath the burden of human sorrows, contrast with that utter want of sympathy for man as man, which characterized all the ancient systems both of government and philosophy! The "odi profanum vulgus et arceo" of Horace--that bitter scorn and supercilious contempt of the profane herd--was but the echo of a mode of thinking and feeling well-nigh universal among the learned and the great of his day. Much of Greek, and nearly all of Roman letters, breathes a proud oblivion and contempt of the common people. The scornful sentiment of the Roman poet, cited above, "hate for the profane rabble," is but too faithfully reflected from the pages of ancient scholarship.
But, after all, the great and sufficient means of cementing the bond of sympathy and friendship among the Hebrews, were the three annual festivals, at which the males must, and the females might, assemble at Jerusalem. The divine wisdom has a reach, a compass, a manifold fulness in its plans, which the shortsighted policy of man would in vain labor to imitate. Thus it was in the institution of these solemnities. While the primary end of their appointment was of a religious nature, another and a most important one was the promotion of that fraternal esteem and charity, so congenial both the character of Moses and the temper of his laws. This was the opinion of Maimonides. "The festival days," says he, "were appointed generally for purposes of joy, and because such public assemblies promote that union and affection, which are necessarily required under all civil and political governments."
From a similar motive sprang the national games of Greece, so celebrated in ancient story, and the institution of those assemblies has ever been looked upon as a master stroke of policy and prudence. The Greek nation, as observed by Goguet, composed of a multitude of small states, jealous and envious of each other, had need of some common center, where all might occasionally find themselves united and commingled. This is precisely what happened in these games, whither repaired an incredible number of spectators from all parts of Greece. By this concourse was formed a bond of correspondence, a sort of confraternity, among all the citizens of the different Grecian cities. the Greeks, at these times, appeared to be, in a manner, inhabitants of the same place; they offered in common the same sacrifices to the same deities, and participated in the same pleasures. By this means grudges were calmed, animosities stifled, and quarrels terminated. They had also an opportunity, in these grand assemblages, of effacing those prejudices, which are commonly kept up only by not knowing the persons against whom they are entertained.
Whatever advantages of this nature Greece derived from the institution of her games, the same flowed, in a still higher degree, to the Hebrews from their national festivals. By being thus brought frequently into contact, on an equal footing, they were reminded of their common origin and their common objects. The fact was brought home vividly to their thoughts, that they were sons of the same father, worshippers of the same God, and heirs of the same promises. Persons of distant towns and different tribes met together on terms of brotherhood and fellowship, and old relations were renewed and new ones formed. Thus the twelve petty states would become more and more closely connected, and would be, not merely nominally, but really, and from social love, united into one great people.
How strong the cementing power of these solemn convocations was actually found to be, plainly appears, in the motive which prompted the politic and crafty Jereboam, on the revolt of the ten tribes from the successor of Solomon, to set up the golden calves at Dan and Bethel: "Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David. If this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again to their Lord, even unto Rehoboam, king of Judah, and they shall kill me, and go again unto Rehoboam, king of Judah."3
Here we have a clear proof, that the separation of the ten tribes from the tribe of Judah, under Rehoboam and Jeroboam, could not have been permanent, had not the latter abrogated one part of the law of Moses relative to the festivals. This shows, in a very striking manner, how naturally one common place for national festivals has the effect of preventing, or healing, any such political breaches; and that the legislator who should be desirous of inseparably uniting twelve small states into one great nation, could not adopt a more effectual plan for that purpose than that which Moses pursued in the case of the tribes of Israel.
To bring the illustration of this point somewhat more closely to ourselves, what is it, let me ask, that constitutes the strongest bond of union between the people and states of our own confederacy? Is it a common ancestry? Is it the property we all claim in the public annals of the country? Is it the cementing power of our revolutionary struggle? Is it even our national constitution, that precious legacy, bequeathed to us by the wisdom of our patriot sires? These things, doubtless, have their influence, nor is it a feeble one; but not one, nor all of them combined, are adequate to the result. What, then, is that mysterious, cohesive power which holds us together, and which alone can hold us together, as one people? It is our migratory habits. It is our universal fondness for travel. It is the fact that each of us has a parent, a child, a brother, a sister, in the distant North, the extreme South, the far-off West. It is the certainty that none of us can find ourselves in a railway car, or steamboat, on any of the iron roads or majestic rivers of this broad empire, without meeting or making an acquaintance or a friend. It is the cheap postage system, which enables heart to speak to heart, between the most distant points, without taxing even the poor with an expenditure out of proportion to their means. It is the magnetic telegraph, which transmits the messages of business and of affection, with lightning rapidity, from one extremity of the country to the other. It is our numerous watering places, where the inhabitants of the North, the South, the East, and the West find themselves once a year, like the ancient Greeks at their games, and like the ancient Hebrews at their festivals, united and commingled, sitting at the same table, bathing in the same waters, drinking at the same springs, inhaling health from the same breezes, engaging in the same sports, mingling in the same social circles, and joining in the song and the joke and the laugh together. It is these influences, and such as these, that bind us more firmly as a people into one common brotherhood than would a cordon of paper constitutions long enough to encircle the globe.
A well adjusted system of checks and balances between the several powers of government was another fundamental principle of the civil polity of Moses.
To form a free government, it is necessary to combine the several powers of it, to admit them to each other, to regulate, temper, and set them in motion, to give, as Montesquieu expresses it, ballast to one, in order to enable it to resist another. This is a masterpiece of legislation never produced by hazard, and seldom attained by prudence. It is exactly here that the point of greatest difficulty with a legislator lies. This will afford scope for the exercise of all his genius, however comprehensive, sagacious, and commanding it may be.
It is here that we see the proudest triumph of the British and American constitutions. Here also, as it seems to me, is the chief defect of the constitution of the new French republic. There is no division of powers in it. There is no balance, no check. All the authority of the state is collected into one center, the single assembly; and the constant tendency will be to a similar centralization of power in that body. It will be well if the system does not degenerate into the government of an irresponsible junto of master spirits, or even into the despotism of one man, bold enough and popular enough to seize the reins of supreme power.
Unfortunately, history is but too full of proofs that restless and ambitious spirits, who do not hesitate to seek personal aggrandizement, in the confusion, if not the ruin, of their country, are the growth of all ages and nations. It is well observed by Lowman that there are two principal methods of preventing the evils of ambition, viz. either to take away the usual occasions of ambitious views, or else to make the execution of them difficult and improbable.
The Hebrew constitution, it may be boldly affirmed, made both these provisions, in a manner equal, if not superior, to any known constitution of government in the world. Its very foundation, as we have seen, was laid in a rigid equality of all the citizens, effected by a perfectly equal division of the national domain, which division, moreover, a fundamental ordinance of the constitution made perpetual. Such then was the peculiar character of the agrarian of the Hebrews, that, on the one hand, few could acquire the means of bribery to any considerable extent, and, on the other, there could hardly, at any one time, be many indigent persons to be corrupted. The power in the hands of so large a number of freeholders was so much greater than the power in the hands of one, or of a few men, that it is impossible to conceive how, without first destroying some of the fundamental provisions of the constitution, ambition and tyranny could accomplish their nefarious designs.
But, besides cutting off the usual occasions and incitements to ambition, the constitution made all factious attempts so little likely to succeed, as to be next to impracticable. The powers of each department of the government, as will more clearly appear from our analysis of the constitution in the following chapters, were so balanced by the powers of the other departments, that, without the concurrence of all, it was well-nigh impossible for any one part to draw to itself any considerable preponderance of authority over the others. The authority of the judge was checked by that of the senate of princes; the power of the senatorial council was balanced by that of the judge and the popular assembly; while the whole was tempered and restrained by the oracle of their heavenly king. Whoever will attentively consider the true plan and arrangement of the government, will acknowledge that it must have been exceedingly hard, if not absolutely impracticable, for any person, tribe, magistrate, or public council, to invade the property of the citizens or overturn the liberties of the state.
But it has been repeatedly charged against the institutes of Moses that they were purposely contrived to draw all the wealth and power of the nation into the hands of the Levites, and that, therefore, the chief danger to the popular liberty arose out of the institution of that tribe. Never was so malignant an accusation raised upon so slender a foundation. On the contrary, the organization and disposition of the tribe of Levi was contrived with consummate wisdom, both to impart a vital action to the whole system, and, at the same time, to act as a balance wheel to regulate its motions.
Let us sift a little the charge against this part of the constitution, and see to what it amounts.
There are two principal sources of political, as of personal, power--knowledge and property. It is undeniable that the Levites were the scholars of the nation; and it is readily granted, that, if to this advantage they had united an independent government, such as the other tribes enjoyed, and an equal possession of territory, there would have been a continual and dangerous tendency to the accumulation of property and power in their hands. But Moses committed no such capital mistake as such an organization would argue. His constitution, at one blow, deprived the Levites of a united and independent government, and rendered them incapable of holding landed property. According to an ancient prophecy of their great progenitor, they were "divided in Jacob and scattered in Israel." They were distributed into cities, allotted to them throughout the territories of all the other twelve tribes. By this arrangement both the estates and the persons of the Levites were given into the hands of the remaining tribes, as so many hostages for their good behavior. They were so separated from each other that it was impossible for them to form any dangerous combinations among themselves or to afford mutual assistance in the execution of any ambitious projects. Upon suspicion of any factious attempts on their part, it was in the power of the other tribes, not only to put a stop to their whole livelihood, but also to seize upon all their persons at once. Hence it may be perceived, that, whatever influence the constitution conferred upon the Levites to do good, the same constitution took away from them all power to endanger the peace or the liberties of their country. Never, certainly, did any other constitution watch, with such eagle-eyed jealousy, to preserve the people from the dangers of ill-balanced power, or guard the public liberty with so many and so admirably contrived defenses against the projects of factious and restless ambition. Most justly does Lowman take notice how much these provisions of the Hebrew government to prevent the occasions of faction excel all the constitutions of the famed Spartan lawgiver for the same purpose, so much celebrated by Grecian authors. Nor would they, he adds, have missed their praise, had they been published by a Lycurgus, a Solon, a Numa, or, indeed, by any body but Moses. The more we examine into the Mosaic plan of government, and the more reflection we bestow upon it, the more shall we be convinced of the admirable equilibrium of its powers, and the more shall we feel its fitness for the efficient preservation of the public liberty.
The necessity of an enlightened, virtuous, salutary public opinion, is the last of those great ideas, which I shall notice as lying at the basis of the Hebrew constitution.
Public opinion is an instrument of mighty power, and it is nonetheless powerful because its operation is silent and unperceived. It is a great and pervading principle of action among men. No human being is beyond the reach of its influence. The despot moderates his tyranny in obedience to its mandates. The legislator respects its authority in making laws. The politician seeks to turn it to account in promoting his schemes of personal advancement. A disregard of it cost Charles I of England his head, and drove Charles X of France from his throne.
Ignorance or contempt of it has prostrated monarchs, overthrown governments, and drenched the plains of Europe and America in fraternal blood. Yet how benign it may be made in its operation and effects!--not like those destructive engines, with which the walls of hostile cities are battered down, but like those happier contrivances, by which the waters of rivers are diverted from their channels and conveyed to the orchards, gardens, and cornfields of the neighboring valleys, which thus become indebted to them for their fertility and their beauty, for the riches which reward the husbandman's toils, and the bloom and fragrance which regale his senses. Public opinion is "the empire of mind instead of brute force, and will always prevail, when intelligence is generally diffused, and thought is free and untrammeled. Mere statute law is comparatively powerless, if public opinion is against it. Civil liberty, too, even if acquired today, may be lost tomorrow, unless there is accompanying it a sound public opinion, growing out of general intelligence, and an elevated tone of moral sentiment among the mass of the people. Hence the great importance of those regulations in a community, which tend to improve the standard of public sentiment." No legislator ever understood this principle better than Moses, and none ever applied it with a wiser forecast. Undoubtedly the most efficient means employed by him to form a just, pure, wise, and vigorous public opinion was the system of education, which he established among the people and which has been already described. But Moses introduced into his code many other regulations, which had a strong tendency to that end, even if such was not their primary intention. Let the reader consult Exodus 22:21-24; Deuteronomy 24:6,10,19-22; Exodus 23:4, Deuteronomy 22:6, 24:14; Leviticus 19:32; and Exodus 23:1. Dr. Spring takes notice of the precepts here referred to, and denominates them great moral axioms, designed to form the moral sensibilities of the Hebrews by a standard refined and honorable, to guard them against unnatural obduracy, and to be a sort of standing appeal to the tenderness and honor of men in all their mutual intercourse. Dr. Matthews speaks of them as "statutes by which the national mind in the Hebrew commonwealth was trained to a high standard of public sentiment, imparting to all classes a sensibility to the proprieties of life, and a spontaneous regard to its relative duties, which, in some degree, render a people a law unto themselves. To produce and perpetuate such a governing power, the power of opinion, is the very essence of wise legislation; and, in proportion to its strength and prevalence among a people, will the foundations of civil freedom be strong and enduring." This was the steady aim and successful endeavor of the Jewish lawgiver.
Such, then, as I conceive, were the great ideas, the fundamental principles, which lay at the basis of the Hebrew state. The unity of God; the unity of the nation; civil liberty; political equality; an elective magistracy; the sovereignty of the people; the responsibility of public officers to their constituents; a prompt, cheap, and impartial administration of justice; peace and friendship with other nations; agriculture; universal industry; the inviolability of private property; the sacredness of the family relation; the sanctity of human life; universal education; social union; a well adjusted balance of powers; and an enlightened, dignified, venerable public opinion, were the vital elements of the constitution of Moses. What better basis of civil polity, what nobler maxims of political wisdom, does the nineteenth century offer to our contemplation, despite its boast of social progress and reform? The institutions founded on these maxims, tower up, amid the barbaric darkness and despotisms of antiquity, the great beacon light of the world, diffusing the radiance of a political philosophy full of truth and wisdom, over all the ages, which have succeeded that in which they were first promulgated to mankind.
