# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1855 02 13_S101
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

101

States; in this way we bring it about that our public officials fulfil our will, the will of the people, in the framing and execution of the laws: we regard this very thing as a chief article of our freedom. — Aha! cries Paul Achievement-Monger, do you see, that is just political freedom, that our will, the will of the people, can be just as despotic as the will of a king or emperor, Napoleon for instance. Where the officials of a state are directed to take the will of the people as the standard by which they are to frame and execute laws, there they must obey the will of the majority of those who reveal their will by casting their votes. But this majority is perhaps only a very small number of the citizens of the country, out of 20 millions embracing at most only 2 millions, and has perhaps made itself the majority by this, that through wild proceedings at the primaries and at the polls it forced the respectable and upright citizens not to vote at all, and now brings into the saddle officials who seek only the advantage of the majority that favors them, properly of the leaders of the same, of the ambitious, the covetous rich and others, and who violate the rights of most citizens, or of certain classes of them, of the poor for example. Yes, the real majority of the citizens of a country, the overwhelmingly greater part of them, can be so led astray by cunning and ambitious heads, by gifted scoundrels, even by widespread and mighty errors, that through the election of their officials laws arise and measures of government are adopted which destroy the freedom of the country. In the state of Athens, of which Acts 17 tells, the people also chose the officials themselves, as in the United States; there an Alcibiades was able to trample under foot all rights, everything that had otherwise been sacred to the Athenians, with the applause of the people; there thirty officials, appointed to review and amend the earlier laws, but by no means to overthrow the constitution, were able actually to overthrow this constitution and even for a considerable time to arrogate to themselves the whole power of the state. Even the constitution is no firm, unassailable protection of the freedom of the country; the ambitious or covetous official or representative will so interpret it that in the end he abuses it still as a cloak for his unlawful designs and makes the misguided people believe that it is being governed in conformity with it. Who, finally, will vouch to me that not even the mighty in the land, by a forced majority, will put an end to the constitution and thereby bring lawlessness, injustice, anarchy, despotism itself to power? The will of the people, even if one thinks it guided by the fundamental laws of the country, the constitution, is no guarantee for the freedom of our country, and must not be the rule for the conduct of the officials of our government. But, you ask, what guarantee have we then, since the officials are appointed by the people themselves and therefore only such men come into office as agree with the will of the majority? We have a protection, a guarantee for the freedom of the land, firmer than the rocks and mountains of God. God's Word and commandment is this protection, this guarantee. If it were the will of the majority of the people to keep God's commandments, then officials too would be chosen who have the earnest will to do the work of their office in conformity with God's commandments. The people would not demand of them that they carry out its will, but that they carry out God's will; they themselves would seek neither hypocritically to follow the will of the people nor ambitiously and covetously to push through their own will, but rather, according to the rule of the divine Word, to give and preserve to every citizen the right allotted to him by the constitution and the other laws. The fundamental law of all fundamental laws and constitutions is the holy Ten Commandments of God; in their letter the very fewest of the laws that are needed in a state are set down, but they are the fountain of all good laws which truly establish the right of all citizens, they are the sun, and all other laws, so far as they are right, the rays of the sun; as little as I may demand of a law of the land that it be copied out literally from the holy Ten Commandments, so much the more must I demand of all the laws of a state and of all the practice of them that they do not contradict the holy Ten Commandments. He who knows God's commandments knows that where government is carried on according to them, justice is surely done, political freedom surely reigns, whether the state be a republic or a monarchy.

So it would come to this here also in the United States, to prevail upon its citizens to make God's holy commandments the fundamental law and rule of their whole conduct, especially also of their participation in the affairs of the state, elections and the like, and thereby to bring it about that the government should administer constitution and law altogether according to that same infallible rule. But this can only be done through the preaching of the Gospel; for through the faith of the Gospel the law is established, Rom. 3:31, and he who has been converted to the faith of the Gospel surely has the will to keep God's commandments, Rom. 7:19 ff. Every labor for the extension of the kingdom of God, whatever we do to found Christian congregations far and wide in all states and regions, to build churches and Christian schools, all this churchly working and striving, it serves always to lead the people to that righteousness by which a nation is exalted, to suppress sin, which is the destruction of the people. I know well that there is a civil righteousness which is not just wrought by the faith of the Gospel; the heathen Romans, among others, were distinguished by such righteousness several centuries before the birth of Christ. But it has never and nowhere been of stability and duration; it soon collapsed, and with it the states in which only it was known and practiced! Moreover the citizens of a state, who can have the so much higher and better righteousness of love to God through Christ, ought not to be content with that slight civil righteousness; yes, I say, surely not without reason, that in these times of the preaching of the Gospel that civil righteousness can be practiced only by those who have never heard the Gospel, because all those who hear the Gospel and yet would not practice a better righteousness than the old heathen Romans fall under the judgment of hardening and would not even do as the Romans did. In the Gospel of Jesus Christ the power is given for obedience to God's commandments and therefore also for the keeping of all laws which do not contradict the commandments of God: Therefore let us, with our example and with the Word which God has chosen preeminently for His instrument, spread the Gospel round about us, and with our prayer and our substance strive that churches and Christian schools be built and in them the Word of the living God be preached full, pure and with a joyful opening of the mouth. There is no better means to build for ourselves and all the inhabitants of this land and for our children here a dwelling-place wherein righteousness and peace kiss each other; yes, and this means, the Word of our God, is fully able for it, able to give us the power that we may obtain ever more the noble good of political freedom and possess it ever more worthily.

Even the unbeliever who has really studied a little in the history of the nations will grant me that political freedom exists where good laws give all citizens security for the all-round fulfilment of their calling; that the individual citizen is first truly free when he does the good laws of the land from the heart gladly; that finally freedom comes to the enjoyment of the individual citizen only when all serve one another with mutual proofs of love and with the respect for right which the law commands also render one another the friendly help which the law can never command. Even in this the unbeliever who has once earnestly looked at the holy Ten Commandments will agree with me, that if all laws in the land were made and administered according to the holy Ten Commandments, political freedom would really reign. But the unbeliever will shake his head over my assertion that the happiness and blessing of political freedom can fall to our share only through faith in the Gospel of Christ. To my proofs from history, that the true Christians have also at all times been very good citizens, and that Christianity everywhere has wrought mutual love and equity, and in particular has spread purer laws and justice in the government of the nations, he will hold up to me the terrors of the wars of religion, the raging of the Inquisitions, the follies of the enthusiasts, yes, from the present time the division and schism which, arising through the diversity of the con-