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Updated: July 9, 2025
And everywhere is the machinery ready, though different in its frame and operation in different torture-chambers, to crush out the budding skepticism, and to mould the mind into the monotonous decency of general conformity. Foe or Fetish, King or Kaiser, Deity itself or the vicegerents it has appointed in its stead, are answerable for it all.
The sovereigns of this world, by associating the Divinity in the government of their dominions, by proclaiming themselves his vicegerents and representatives upon earth, and by acknowledging they hold their power from him, have necessarily constituted his ministers their own rivals or masters.
Because the clerk of this house the mere clerk, whom we create, whom we employ, and whose existence depends upon our will usurps the throne, and sets us, the representatives, the vicegerents of the whole American people, at defiance, and holds us in contempt! And what is this clerk of yours? Is he to suspend, by his mere negative, the functions of government, and put an end to this Congress?
Can any position be imagined more irritating that that of a careful man of business who is keeper of the purse for a company of heedless enthusiasts professing complete indifference to the value of money, misunderstanding the genius of their chief, and looking out every morning for some sign in the clouds, a prophecy of their immediate appointment as vicegerents of a power that would supersede the awful majesty of the Imperial city?
The powerful war monarchs of Assyria led their armies to conquest in the name of the national deity, whose vicegerents they claimed to be. The autocratic emperors of Rome went so far as to claim in some cases to be gods themselves. Even in modern Russia some of this dignity pertains to the emperor, as the supreme head of the national church. Old ideas are proverbially hard to kill.
I am sure that which I hold, that all lawful magistrates are powers ordained by God, and are to be honoured and obeyed as God’s vicegerents, is a firm and strong foundation for magistracy.
So much for the assumption. But in the same sense I utterly deny his proposition, as being a great untruth in divinity; for the sense of it can be no other than this: Whosoever do not manage their office and authority in Christ’s stead, or as deputies and vicegerents of Christ, as he is Mediator, they manage it in the devil’s stead, as the devil’s deputies and vicegerents.
If he say they are not men in authority, he shall contradict the apostle Paul, who calls them higher powers, Rom. xiii. 1, and men in authority, 1 Tim. ii. 2, speaking in reference even to the magistrates of that time, who were infidels. If he say they are Christ’s vicegerents, then, 1.
He must say, that Christ, as Mediator, reigns without the church, and is a king to those to whom he is neither priest nor prophet. 2. He must find a commission given by Christ to the infidel magistrate. 3. Whom in authority will he make to be the devil’s vicegerents if infidel magistrates be Christ’s vicegerents? If he say that they are the devil’s vicegerents, then it follows, 1.
That is to say, "I am at length compelled to admit to Moses that Jehovah is greater than all gods, and that His power is unrivalled." We must remain in doubt whether Moses thought that these beings who acted as God's vicegerents were created by Him, for he has stated nothing, so far as we know, about their creation and origin.
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