The Spirit of the Law ­— Part Two

In Part One of this two-part series on “The Spirit of the Law,” we cited examples of how things which God intended for our good had been twisted through religious legalism, bringing bondage rather than freedom. We examined a dichotomy which said that “the spirit of the law” is often contrasted with the “letter of the law.”

In this context, the spirit of the law has to do with the initial meaning or reason for the law (its essence), whereas the letter of the law refers to its exact wording, literally applied, without regard for its original purpose or deeper meaning.

Leviticus 19:14 states: “Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind.” Here the letter of the law forbids precisely two things: cursing the deaf and tripping up the blind. However, since no law can cover every possible scenario, we conclude that the spirit of the law in Leviticus 19:14 generally forbids taking advantage of the disabilities of another.

As with Biblical practices, when the Constitution is not applied according to its intended purpose, it malfunctions, causing frustration, anger, and even oppression. Determining the original purpose of a constitutional clause or statute is thereby critical to good governance.

President Thomas Jefferson advised Supreme Court Justice William Johnson to utilize the following approach in determining the original intent of a law, asserting: “On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”

Justice James Wilson likewise affirmed: “The first and governing maxim in the interpretation of a statute is to discover the meaning of those who made it.”

Today, the application of this method is referred to as “original intent” or “originalism” or “textualism.” In one prominent late 19th century case, the U.S. Supreme Court summarized this approach with the simple precept that in order to determine the purpose of a law, one had only to determine “the evil which was intended to be remedied.”

Why was this approach so readily adopted? Because, in the struggle to gain their freedom for Great Britain, the Founding Fathers had seen and experienced many evils which made them believe that it was imperative to guarantee to the people their ”free exercise of religion” in the first amendment. Likewise, many incidents were on record which caused the Founders to believe that trials by jury and the right of an accused to confront his accuser should be protected, thereby codified in the sixth amendment.

Early Supreme Court Justices understood how important it was to establish original intent and thus avoid the senseless applications of laws that threatened to transform government from being a blessing to instead becoming an oppressive and punishing institution.

One example of how this principle of original intent was applied occurred in 1885, when Congress passed a law making it illegal for any “person, company, partnership, or corporation to hire any alien or….foreigners to perform labor or service of any kind.” When the Church of the Holy Trinity in New York hired a clergyman from England as its pastor, the U.S. Attorney’s office sued the church for violating the law.

When the case finally reached the Supreme Court in 1892, the court began by reviewing the legislative records pertinent to the 1885 law in order to establish its spirit, or original intent. The court immediately determined that Congress’s sole purpose for passing the law had been to stem the influx of Chinese slave-like labor to construct the western railroads. Congress never imagined that the law would be used to prevent a church from hiring a pastor, and thus concluded that it would be absurd to prosecute the church under the letter of the law when the spirit of the law had been so clear.

We are reminded in First Timothy 1:8: “But we know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully.” When a law is not used according to its original intent it becomes unjust. So in order for our government to be a blessing, we must always choose leaders who understand the history and purpose of our government and its Constitution, for only such leaders can follow Founding Father John Dickinson’s proposition from 2 Corinthians 3:6 that “in government, as well as in religion, ‘the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.’”

Tim Lewis can be reached at timlewis1@windstream.net.

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