No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted

Hear, O seekers of wisdom, the grave words of Joseph Addison, who, in an age of kings and parliaments, declared: “No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.” This is no idle phrase, but a solemn warning carved in fire. For Addison perceived that when cruelty wears the mask of law, its chains bite deeper than the lash of a tyrant, and its weight endures long after the tyrant himself is gone.

The meaning of this teaching lies in the nature of legal authority. The law is meant to be a shield for the weak, a guide for the just, and a pillar upon which society rests. But when it is perverted, twisted to serve the greed of rulers or the fear of the powerful, it becomes not a shield but a sword. For what weapon is sharper than injustice proclaimed lawful? And what tyranny is harder to cast down than one sanctified by statutes, decrees, and judges in robes? It is one thing to resist a bandit; it is another to resist a government that declares banditry to be justice.

History bears grim witness to Addison’s truth. Consider the Nuremberg Laws of Nazi Germany, written in 1935. They did not come as wild decrees shouted from the mouths of madmen, but as laws, solemnly passed, written upon paper, and enforced by courts. These laws stripped Jews of citizenship, forbade marriage across lines of blood, and laid the foundation for horrors unthinkable. Here the perversion of legal authority became the instrument of genocide. And because the cruelty was clothed in legality, it silenced many who might otherwise have resisted, convincing them that oppression was order.

Nor must we look only to foreign lands. In the United States, for generations, the law itself upheld slavery and then segregation. The Constitution, that noble charter, was once read to protect bondage; courts declared that a man of African descent had “no rights which a white man was bound to respect.” These were not merely opinions—they were the very exorbitance of legal authority, wielded to sanctify cruelty. And so millions suffered, not only under the lash but under the crushing weight of injustice declared legitimate by the highest voices of the land.

Mark well, O listener: Addison spoke truly that such oppression is not only heavy, but lasting. For when injustice is made law, it does not vanish with the signing of a new decree. Its scars endure in the hearts of the oppressed, in the habits of societies, in the lingering shadow of prejudice. Long after slavery was abolished, long after apartheid fell, the echoes of those legal injustices still shape lives, still whisper of the past, still remind us that the most enduring chains are those forged by the law.

Let this be the lesson: guard the purity of the law as one guards the purity of water. Demand that authority serve justice and not power, compassion and not cruelty. Question every statute that denies dignity, every decree that silences the weak, every policy that enriches the strong at the expense of the poor. For the law belongs not to rulers alone but to the people, and it is their vigilance that keeps it from corruption.

Therefore, O child of tomorrow, walk with both reverence and watchfulness. Reverence, for the law is a gift that can preserve peace and order. Watchfulness, for the law can also be perverted into an idol of oppression. Stand boldly when others shrink, and remember that legality is not the same as righteousness. Seek always the higher law—justice, mercy, truth—and bend earthly laws toward it.

Thus Joseph Addison’s words endure as both a warning and a charge: beware the perversion of legal authority, for it is the heaviest of chains. But know, too, that those chains may be broken when people awaken, when conscience rises above statutes, and when courage demands that law be wedded once more to justice.