moral example: Are such unions to be therefore declared invalid, and the offspring of them rendered illegitimate?
To permit the sale of intoxicating drugs and spirits, so injurious to health, and even sometimes destructive of life, on the payment of duties publicly levied, is an act highly irreligious and immoral: Is the taxation to be, therefore, rendered invalid and payments stopped?
To divide spoils gained in a war commenced in ambition and carried on with cruelty, is an act immoral and irreligious: Is the partition therefore to be considered invalid, and the property to be replaced?
To give a daughter in marriage to an unworthy man, on account of his rank or fortune, or other such consideration, is a deed of mean and immoral example: Is the union to be therefore considered invalid, and their children illegitimate?
To destroy the life of a fellow being in a duel, is not only immoral, but is reckoned by many as murder: Is not the practice tacitly admitted to be legal, by the manner in which it is overlooked in courts of justice?
33. There are of course acts lying on the border of immorality, or both immoral and irreligious; and these are consequently to be considered invalid: such as the contracting of debts by way of gambling, and the execution of a deed on the Sabbath day. The question then arises, how shall we draw a line of distinction between those immoral acts that should not be considered invalid, and those that should be regarded as null in the eye of the law? In answer to this, we must refer to the common law and the established usages of every country, as furnishing the distinctions admitted between the one class and the other. The reference suggested is, I think,
