How can citizens be honestly described as free and equal who are not, who never were, “free and equal” in any reasonable sense of the phrase? How can they be even considered men, whose whole lives are governed by cast-iron regulations; whose every movement is circumscribed and restrained by penal threats — even whose secret thoughts are in a constant state of silent repression?
It is no apology whatever to affirm that the People themselves enact all laws they are commanded to obey. Even that statement is a falsity and if it were true, it would not justify majority Dictatorship or any other kind of Dictatorship.
The Constitution under which all other laws are born, was accepted, not by us but by bewigged individuals who are long since rotten. We are ruled, in fact by cadavers — the inhabitants of tombs.
“Why should agreements made by coffined dead men bind and mortgage living, pulsing, breathing beings?
Their bones have long ago mouldered into ozone and fertilizers, who drew up and signed the Bill of Rights; Magna Charta, the Sermon on the Mount, the Declaration of Independence, our Glorious Constitution, etc., etc. Rotten are the brains that concocted them and the fingers that signed and sealed them. Equally rotten are their irrational and infantile philosophies. Rotten also in their heart, are the men who obey under compulsion voices from the tomb.
No doubt those old documents served their purpose at the time, but ‘new occasions teach new duties,’ and new ages require, not only new leaders, but new deeds.
Again, most Acts of Congress are the Machiavellian work of eminent rogues, curse them whose very names are almost forgotten except by partisan chroniclers, and printers of public school histories.
As for the Common Law, it is an inheritance from those interesting old days, when Saxon and Norman earls (they were genuine noblemen then, for they had won their position by risking their lives in battle) administered ‘Justice’ direct, per media of knotted clubs, hilted knives, and long handled cleavers. That was the only kind of ‘Law’ understood by our ‘uncivilized’ forefathers, for they had not been ‘educated’ into the profound conviction that governments and laws ‘derive all their just powers from the consent of the governed.’ Such an expression would have sent them into convulsions, and he who uttered it would be considered — a most excellent fool.
No doubt our ancestors were somewhat rude in their manners, somewhat deficient in sweetness and culture but in matters of frozen fact they were decidedly logical. They did not sneak to public meetings and swagger about ‘Liberty,’ ‘Justice,’ and ‘Equality of Opportunity,’ or ‘Rights of Man,’ when they knew full well that not only their lives, but everything they nominally possessed was ‘by leave’ of their conquerors and proprietors. They accepted their position pro-tem, and when again ready, honestly re-entered the doom-ring to test anew their Fate.
If they could come alive again how those old Pirates and Freebooters would stare in shame and scorn at the sight of their ‘tenderfoot’ posterity, walking up in solemn, horny-handed, hump-backed procession in shoddy rags before an idol-altar called a ballot-box, dropping into its gilded maw, printed invocations for Justice, Mercy, Liberty, “Peace in our time O! Lord!” — Protection, — Cheap Money, — ‘more laws! more laws! more laws!’ How our blonde, clean-limbed ancestors would guffaw? Indeed, they would probably keep on guffawing, till they guffawed themselves to death again.
‘Oh!’ they would say: — ‘to think that our seed should have sunk so low!’
But, Equality before the Law is all we mean whimpers the everlasting sophist — the cunning liar! Let us see! By what rational method can any two litigants be placed in a position of unconditional ‘Equality before the Law?’ First of all, plaintiff and defendant always possess totally different physical and mental characteristics, different personal magnetisms and different sized bank balances. Also all judges, juries, and legal officials are unequals in temperament, ability, courage and honesty. Each one has his own peculiar idiosyncrasies, prejudices, inferiorities, superstitions, and — price. Each again, may be more or less dishonest and more or less subject to financial pressure or caste bias. No two men are born alike: each one being literally born under his own particular star, formed of different material, swayed by different ideals, educated and moulded in a different mill, by a different process.
Even if all tribunals of Justice were founded upon blind Impartiality, and administered free of cost, it will be plainly seen, that ‘Equality before the Law’ remains a mere chimera, a dream; and of no real value. ‘Equality before the Law,’ is just a meaningless catchword, something like that famous Jesuitism — ‘Liberty regulated by Law.’
Statute Law may formally confer equal rights and privileges upon unequal citizens, but it cannot enforce itself — it must execute its mandate through human media, and that media is full up to the brim with superiorities, inferiorities, and inequalities.
No legalism has ever been devised that Strength can not drive its coach and four through; and it is a popular proverb (in all lands) that somehow, there is ‘one law for the rich and another for the poor.’ Indeed the poor can never be placed upon an equality with the rich — not even by the pillage of the rich.
Whether they are the Fittest or not, the present proprietors of wealth should never permit themselves to be plundered, without a savage struggle.
Sooner or later, the hour of this struggle in its acute form shall arrive, but the Rich must not dread it. If they prepare in time, the result shall not only justify their mastership, but render it impregnable — if they are Fit. To be respected and secure, Aristocracies must rest themselves upon Sworded Might, not upon paper-credits, consols, and bond issues.
Should the Opulents be conquered and pillaged, that in itself will be conclusive evidence that they are neither the Fittest nor the Best. Upon this earth there is no such thing as Equal Justice.
All legal tribunals are based, not upon ideal concepts of Justice and Fair Play, but upon effective armed Strength. This is a truism. Robbery under arms, laid the corner stone of every Court House in Christendom and elsewhere. How then can the robbers and the robbed — the eagle and the pigeon — the chicken and the hawk be placed in positions of genuine equilibrium before removable officials, specially paid and appointed, to ‘vindicate the Law’ — that is to give forcible effect to the Dicta of the Strongest.
All judges are authorized avengers armed to the teeth and all hangmen are licensed assassins, trained to kill. These words are not spoken in disparagement. Assassins and avengers! Ha! If that be so…
Truly they that “seek the Lord” do suffer hunger but — lions seek for prey.
When an army of occupation settles down upon an enemy’s territory, it issues certain rules of ‘procedure’ for the orderly transference of the property and persons of the conquered into the absolute possession and unlimited control of the conquerors. These ‘rules of procedure’ may at first take shape as orders issued by military generals’ but after a time they develop themselves into Statute Books, Precedents, and Constitutions. Indeed all Law is now and ever has been, the mandate of successful belligerents or rather the mandate of the few masterful personalities that ever inspire them.