The government represents the people. It conducts its affairs in accordance with the wishes of the people. Its duty is to arrest those who commit crimes, and to protect those who are innocent. This is what the people desire. Therefore if this purpose can be achieved, the government will be serving the country well. For, in the first place, criminals are wicked, and the innocent are good. There is therefore no reason to object if a good person defends himself against the wicked intentions of another—for example, if that wicked person had attempted to harm the good person, to kill the good person’s own loved ones, or to rob his household, it will not be unreasonable if the good person apprehends the wicked person, and perhaps kills him or whips him. But it would be quite impossible to defend oneself against a whole lot of wicked people at once; or again, even if he could, it would involve an extravagantly great expense. Therefore a government is founded to represent the people, and to perform the service of protecting the people. In compensation for this service, the people have promised to pay all the expenses of the government, not to speak of the wages of the officials.
Furthermore, since the government has become the representative of the people and has acquired the right to act in their behalf, its measures are the people’s measures, and accordingly the people must obey the law. This is a contract between the people and the government. Hence obedience to the nation’s government by the people means, not obedience to laws enacted by the government, but obedience to laws enacted by themselves. Violation of the nation’s laws means, not violation of the government’s laws, but violation of their own laws. Punishment for violation of the law means punishment by the laws which they themselves have set up. It is as if each citizen performed the duties of two persons. The first duty is to found a government to represent the people by arresting the wicked and protecting the innocent. The second is strictly to obey the covenant they have made with the government, and thus to receive its protection in accordance with the law.
As I have just said, since the people have contracted to entrust the authority of the law to the government, they may on no account disobey the law, thereby violating the terms of that contract. It is the right of the government to arrest and execute a murderer. It is the right of the government to arrest and put a robber in prison, as well as to settle lawsuits, to prevent violence and disputes. The people must not interfere with these prerogatives to any degree. If, in ignorance of this principle, a person should take it upon himself privately to execute a murderer or to arrest and lash a robber, it would be rendering a private decision on the other person’s crime as well as violating the law of the land. This is called a private punishment, the crime of which is unpardonable. In this case of private vendetta, the laws of civilized countries are exceedingly severe. They exercise authority without being brutal. In Japan, the authority of the government seems to be prestigious, but some people only fear its superior position, while still not understanding the intrinsic value of the laws in themselves. So let me further explain why private punishment is wrong, and why national laws are intrinsically valuable.
Let us suppose that a burglar enters your house and tries to rob your money by threatening your family. At such a time, the duty of the master of the house is to make a formal complaint to the government and await its disposal of the criminal. But since the present matter is too urgent, there is no time to appeal to the courts. In the meanwhile the burglar has proceeded to enter the storehouse and is about to abscond with your money. If the master of the house tries to stop him, he may endanger his life. Therefore the family must prevent this from happening by taking private steps. They have the temporary right to apprehend the thief, and then appeal to the government. They may have to use a knife or stick which wounds the thief or breaks his leg. In an extreme emergency, they may have to shoot him. But this is the case of the master of the house taking temporary measures to defend himself and his household. It is not an accusation against the thief’s wrongdoing, and it is not a direct punishment of his crime. The government alone can punish the criminal; it is not a duty entrusted to the private individual. Therefore, even if one has privately apprehended a robber, he may not kill or lash him. He may not even lay a finger on him. He must report it to the government and abide by its decision. If he kills the thief out of anger, or lashes him, his own crime will be no less than killing or lashing an innocent person.
According to one country’s laws, a person who steals ten yen will receive a punishment of one hundred thrashings; kicking another’s face will likewise draw a punishment of one hundred thrashings. Now consider the case in which a thief breaks into another’s house and steals ten yen. As he is about to run away, he is captured and tied up by the master of the house. After that, the master of the house kicks the robber’s face. According to the laws of that country, the robber should receive one hundred thrashings for stealing ten yen, and the master of the house should also receive one hundred thrashings for his own crime of opting privately to kick him in the face out of anger. Such is the severity of the law of that nation. People must take heed of it.
From the above principle it can be understood that private vengeance is evil.† The murderer of one’s own parent is officially a criminal of the state. The government alone has the official duty to arrest and condemn this criminal. No civilian should be involved. In no instance can even the son of the murdered parent take it upon himself to kill this criminal in place of the government. This would be not only an imprudent conduct on his part but it would also be to mistake his duty as a citizen of the nation, and to violate his contract made with the government. If the government disposes of the case with undue favoritism to the accused, the son should complain of this injustice to the government. Whatever reasons one may have, one is not entitled on any account to initiate the process of punishment. Even if the murderer of one’s parent is lingering before his own eyes, he has no right to retaliate privately.
In the Tokugawa Period, the retainers of Lord Asano killed Kira Kōzuke-no-suke to avenge the death of their master.† People praised them as loyal samurai of Akō. But was this not a great error? The Tokugawa shogunate constituted the government at that time. Both Asano Takumi-no-kami and Kira Kōzuke-no-suke, and the retainers of the Asano house as well, were all Japanese citizens. They had promised the government to obey its laws, and thus to receive the government’s protection under the law. However, by some mistake Kira insulted Asano. But the latter did not lodge a complaint with the government; in anger, he attempted to kill Kira directly. This led to a dispute, which ended with the Tokugawa government putting Asano on trial and ordering him to commit seppuku. It did not punish Kira. This was a very unjust aspect of the trial. But if the retainers of Lord Asano thought this trial unjust, why did they not complain about it to the goverment?
Now, if each of the forty-seven retainers had made arrangement to lodge a complaint with the authorities according to the law, they might have won their case in the end. The lawsuit might not have been accepted at first, because the government was despotic all along. The first complainant might even have been arrested and killed. But then a second retainer of the Asano house might have stepped fearlessly forward to lodge a second complaint. If all the forty-seven retainers had exposed their lives in their effort to make a just appeal, the government, no matter how bad it was, would eventually have submitted to reason. To make the decision of the trial fairer, it would then have punished Kira as well. By such a procedure the retainers of Asano would have shown how truly loyal they were. But they did not know this principle. In their status as only people of the country, they disregarded the value of the laws of the country to murder Kira out of enmity against a political enemy. By privately deciding another’s crime they therefore violated their duties as citizens and trespassed on the right of the government. Fortunately, they were then condemned to death by the Tokugawa authorities, so that the matter was settled. If their crime had been condoned, the retainers of the Kira family would surely have taken their own revenge on the retainers of Akō. One vendetta would have followed another until finally all the kinsmen and friends of both sides would have been wiped out. The result would have been a world of anarchy. Such, then, is the harm of private punishment to the nation; it has no place in the proper conduct of things.
In the past, when Japanese peasants or townsfolk were rude to a samurai, he had the legal right to cut them down with his sword. This right entailed public approbation of private punishment. It was abominable. The laws of the nation must be directly enforced by the government alone. The more numerous the places where laws are enacted, the weaker their power. During the feudal period, when each of the three hundred daimyo held the power of life and death over their people, the power of the Tokugawa government was proportionately weaker too.
Assassination is the worst form of private punishment and is most harmful to the government. Looking at the records from ancient times, we find that some were undertaken out of personal enmity, others to rob money. One who plots such an assassination is from the start an intended criminal. Another kind of assassination is done, not for private motives, but against a political enemy. People’s political opinions may vary, but some seem to think that they can take their own opinion as the criterion for deciding another’s crime. They therefore kill others at will, infringing upon the prerogative of the government. Not only are they not ashamed of their act, they even boast of having inflicted “Heaven’s punishment.” They are even called patriotic by some.
But what, first of all, is this “Heaven’s punishment”? Does it mean to inflict the death penalty in place of Heaven? If that were so, one should first examine his own situation. Living in this land from the beginning, what kind of promise has he made with the government? It was to obey the national laws without fail, and thus to receive the protection of the government. If he has some complaint about certain laws, or thinks that some persons are subversive to the nation, he should quietly lodge a formal complaint with the government. But to bypass the government to take action by oneself in the name of Heaven would be the wrongest kind of solution. No matter how sincere, such persons are ignorant of the principles of things. They worry about the country without truly knowing why. In point of fact, no one has ever accomplished anything good by assassination, or increased the well-being of society thereby.
People who do not understand the intrinsic value of laws live only in fear of the government officials. They do not feel ashamed of having committed a real crime as long as it does not become publicly known. Such lawbreakers who cleverly dodge the law will, on the contrary, sometimes be praised for their cleverness. In the conversations of people we hear such talk as: “While there is a firm law of the land, and an official law of the government, if certain things can be secretly ‘arranged’ in such and such a way, it will not publicly interfere with the law, and so it can remain an official secret.” Thus they talk smilingly, and no one suspects anything. Some go so far as to confer with minor officials to arrange a secret “deal.” Both parties seem to benefit from the deal, and there seems to be no crime involved. The immutable laws of the land are in fact too complicated and hard to put into practice, so that such secret deals are liable to be made. But from the standpoint of the nation, this kind of thing is a most dangerous abuse.
If people get the habit of disregarding the law in this way, this spirit of insincerity will become universal. Laws which would be beneficial, if obeyed, will be violated, and crime will be the order of the day. Take for example the government law that prohibits urinating on the roads. Some people do not understand the value of this prohibition. They are only afraid of being caught by the police. If a person is unexpectedly caught by a policeman when furtively breaking this law in the evening, he bows before the law; but within his heart he does not consider that he is being punished for a violation of the law. He only thinks that it was his unlucky day for being nabbed in the act. This is indeed very deplorable. Therefore, when the government makes laws, they must be made simple; and once enacted, they must be strictly enforced to achieve their purpose. If such laws are inconvenient, the people should freely discuss and complain about them to the authorities. Once they have accepted the laws, they must respectfully obey them.
A case came up recently here at Keio-gijuku. Mr. Ōta Sukeyoshi, a peer, had used his own private funds two years ago to hire an American to teach at the Keio. At the expiration of that appointment, he wanted to hire another American. An agreement was informally settled between Mr. Ōta and the interested party. Mr. Ōta then sent a written application to the Tokyo prefecture government office to hire this American as a teacher of the humanities. But a law on the books of the Ministry of Education required that even a private institution could not hire a private instructor who did not have in his possession a diploma showing the completion of his course work in his native land. The American did not have his diploma with him in Japan. Mr. Ōta received official notice that it was permissible to hire him as a language teacher, but not as an instructor in the humanities. Thereupon, I wrote a letter of application to the prefectural office. I said that I was requesting acceptance of Mr. Ōta’s application after rendering a favorable judgment on the American’s scholastic competence, despite the fact that he does not have his diploma with him to present. I pointed out that the prefectural office would have simply passed on the application if it had been for language teaching. But since our students had from the first desired to study the humanities, we had not taken the trouble to deceive the authorities by using the pretext that he was to be a language teacher. My own application was returned to me with the explanation that the regulation of the Ministry of Education could not be changed. As a result the school had to terminate its negotiations with the prospective teacher. At the end of last December the American returned to the United States. Mr. Ōta’s original good intention came to nought, and several hundred students lost a good opportunity to learn. This was indeed not only a great misfortune for a private institution, but also a great drawback to studies in general for the nation. It was a stupid and irksome matter, but the law is important and primary. I intend to make another application in a few days.
Recently Mr. Ōta and the staff of Keio-gijuku informally convened to discuss this case. Since the Ministry of Education’s regulation was written in stone, it was suggested more than once that the application should be changed to “language instructor” to have it accepted. But in the end we did not hire the teacher. We decided that the best course of action was to respect and obey the law as befits our position, even if it was a setback for the school. For it is dishonorable for scholars and gentlemen to deceive the government. Of course, this decision may seem to be a mere trifling episode in the life of a single private institution. But I think that the principle at stake is relevant to public morals, and I am taking this opportunity to underline it here.
