"I shall support the law, for the law gentlemen, is the firm and solid basis of civil society, the guardian of liberty, the protection of the innocent, the terror of the guilty, and the scourge of the wicked"
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Order is being sold here as freedom's bodyguard, and Charles Lawrence knows exactly why that pitch lands. By stacking clause on clause - "firm and solid basis", "guardian", "protection", "terror", "scourge" - he turns "the law" into a single, moral machine: it shelters the deserving and punishes the rest. The rhythm is courtroom theater, designed to sound inevitable. If civil society is a building, law is its foundation; if liberty is a person, law is its armed escort. Lawrence isn't just endorsing statutes. He's claiming a monopoly on legitimacy.
The intent is political: to frame obedience as civic virtue and dissent as proximity to guilt. Notice how "gentlemen" softens the command. He's speaking to an audience with status and property, the people most invested in predictability. The law, in this vision, is neutral only in the abstract; in practice it functions as a sorting device, dividing "innocent" from "guilty" and "wicked" with the confidence of someone who expects his side to be judged innocent by definition.
The subtext is a warning disguised as reassurance. Calling the law the "terror of the guilty" reassures the respectable that coercion is not violence but hygiene. It also suggests that those who fear enforcement have already confessed. For an 18th-century colonial politician, that matters: empire runs on compliance, and compliance runs on the story that force is simply justice doing its job. Lawrence is fortifying authority with moral language, making punishment sound like protection - and making power sound like principle.
The intent is political: to frame obedience as civic virtue and dissent as proximity to guilt. Notice how "gentlemen" softens the command. He's speaking to an audience with status and property, the people most invested in predictability. The law, in this vision, is neutral only in the abstract; in practice it functions as a sorting device, dividing "innocent" from "guilty" and "wicked" with the confidence of someone who expects his side to be judged innocent by definition.
The subtext is a warning disguised as reassurance. Calling the law the "terror of the guilty" reassures the respectable that coercion is not violence but hygiene. It also suggests that those who fear enforcement have already confessed. For an 18th-century colonial politician, that matters: empire runs on compliance, and compliance runs on the story that force is simply justice doing its job. Lawrence is fortifying authority with moral language, making punishment sound like protection - and making power sound like principle.
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
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