I cannot claim a close familiarity with the aims, principles, and workings of your Association. But I have learned, from its constitution, that its objects are “the protection of the person and property of its members, and to assist the civil authorities in the enforcement of law.” The uninitiated speak of it as an “anti-horse thief society,” and it seems to exercise a wholesome influence over those individuals who entertain communistic ideas concerning property rights in horseflesh. And if your organization had no other or broader aims than to make horse-stealing unprofitable and horse thieves unsafe, it would be a useful society. A Western sheriff in pursuit of a horse thief will ride faster and go further than will an officer in search of any other criminal, because he knows that his tenure of office largely depends upon the energy, activity, courage, and success of his pursuit. He knows, too, that he is backed by a public sentiment which holds horse-stealing to be one of the gravest and meanest of crimes, and so he is impelled to activity and vigilance by the strongest incentives—his sense of official duty, his desire to win the approval of his fellow-citizens, and his fear of popular condemnation should he fail in his mission. But your constitution does not pledge your support to the enforcement of the law against horse-stealing alone. It explicitly declares that the objects of your association are, “the protection of the person and property of its members, and to assist the civil authorities in the enforcement of law.” The wisest and greatest of Americans said that this government of ours was a government “of the people, by the people, for the people.” In this country, all power, all authority, is vested in the people. They make and unmake laws. He, therefore, who derides or disregards law, is not contemning or defying a despot or an autocrat—he is antagonizing the sovereign power of the people. Law may not be, as Coke defines it, “the perfection of wisdom.” I have known laws, indeed, that were rather the perfection of folly. But, good or bad, as laws in this country are merely the expression of the people’s will, they should be respected as long as they remain laws. For law is just as necessary to the human race as is the air we breathe or the food we eat. William Pitt truly said that “where law ends, tyranny begins.” Contempt for and disregard of law naturally lead to anarchy, and anarchy, soon becoming intolerable, invites despotism. Nations prosper, peoples thrive, as their laws are wise, humane, and just; but even a bad law is better than no law at all. Lawlessness means disorder, tumult, crime; it means the oppression of the weak by the strong; and, in the end, it means despotism. A people who cannot make and obey their own laws will, just as certainly as the sun will rise to-morrow morning, at last invite the rule of an autocrat who will make laws for them.