OBSERVERS of the seventh-day Sabbath do not hold that the fourth commandment obliges them to work six days out of the week, but they do hold that the commandment forbids them to show deference to any day of the week but the seventh.
“IT is the law and the law must be enforced,” is the plea made in defense of prosecutions for Sunday work; and further, “The best way to destroy a bad or foolish law is to obey it.”
If, then, a wicked statute can be enacted, it will be necessary to commit the wickedness of enforcing it before it can be set aside. Do reason and justice support such a view as this?
If a law were passed affixing the death penalty to some trifling offense, would the courts feel bound to enforce it as the only thing that could be done with it? Would they feel bound to commit murder because “it is the law, and the law must be enforced”?
Certainly not; and the plea that a bad law ought to be enforced simply because “it is the law,” or in order to get it repealed, is only sophistry. There is no justification for enacting such a law, and no justification for enforcing it after it has been passed. A bad law is injustice, and injustice is binding on nobody. An unjust law ought to be repealed at the first opportunity, and meanwhile be let severely alone.