You have probably heard the phrase “Rule of Law” used by journalists, politicians, lawyers and teachers as if everyone knows what it means. And, of course, we all know what the words mean. We know what it means to rule. We know what laws are and we know the word of. But when they are used together as in The Rule of Law, not everyone knows what that means.
It is a piece of jargon like first down or triple play. Only people who follow those sports know what those terms mean. Likewise, only people who follow politics, law or history know the jargon Rule of Law. The problem is journalists, politicians and lawyers forget that not everyone follows the game of politics closely enough to know all the jargon. So, I am going to break it down, so everyone knows what people are upset about when they hysterically cry “He’s destroying the Rule of Law!”
So here is what Rule of Law means and why it matters. First, we have to talk about the fact that people like to live around other people. As far back as archeologists have been able to study there is evidence of people living together. The upside of that is that you have neighbors. Neighbors who can help you. They might help you clean out your garage. You might trade babysitting. You can have cookouts together. The downside is that you have neighbors. Neighbors who borrow your lawn mower and never give it back. Neighbors who have loud parties and neighbors whose dog barks at your cat. Having neighbors is great and having neighbors sucks.
So, we have to have rules. Rules to allow humans to live together without killing each other. Generally speaking, those rules are called laws and there are punishments for violating them. Throughout most of human society those rules were laid down by the person in charge. That person has been called by a lot of different titles – king, emperor, high priest, czar … you get the idea. In this article, I’m going to go with Czar for a couple of reasons. First, there aren’t any more czars and when they did exist, they were absolute rulers. A society with that kind of ruler is the opposite of a society ruled by laws. Second, I love the term. It’s exotic. It conjures images of Cossacks and borealis glimmering over the winter tundra and elusive Reindeer maidens disappearing into the forest. Plus, I am a total fan girl for Imperial Russia. {shrug} What can I say? Historians are into weird shit.
Anyway, to get back on point, the Czar laid down the law. Sometimes he had to run it by advisors first, but most of the time the law was whatever he said it was. Here is the kicker, he did not have to follow ANY of the laws he didn’t want to follow. The Czar could decide that everyone should eat oatmeal for breakfast and that was that. You were eating oatmeal for breakfast whether you like it or not. End of debate. However, if you went to the Czar’s palace for breakfast, he would have eggs, sausage, toast, orange juice and maybe some fresh fruit. You’d sit down thinking you’re gonna finally have a decent breakfast, but nope the butler puts a nice warm bowl of oatmeal in front of you because that’s the law.
You’re probably calling bullshit on that, and after a few hundred years, the common people called it bullshit, too. Among those calling bullshit were a several of Enlightenment philosophers like Rousseau, Hobbs, Locke and a bunch of windbags … uh … I mean, important political thinkers. These windb … uh … great men wrote long, hard to read books about what was wrong with absolute rulers and, more importantly, their ideas on what should replace the old system. A lot of people agreed with their ideas for a new system. Most importantly, for this entry, many men and women in the British North American colonies agreed with them, too. The colonists agreed in large part because their absolute ruler was across an ocean, hadn’t done anything for them lately and still wanted to tax the bejeezus out of them. So, they threw the bum, also known as George III, out.
Presto, INDEPENDENCE! Hooray! But then we had a society but no rules. Ooops, that was a problem. We needed some laws, and we needed to figure out who would make the laws and who they applied to. The first part of that, who makes the laws, is the subject of a different entry or you can just check the closest middle school history book. This entry is going to cover that last bit. Who do the laws apply to?
The Founders quickly decided that the only fair answer to that question was everybody. By that point in history, most people knew that rulers, aristocrats, holy people, etc. were not inherently different or better than everyone else. In that case, everyone had to follow the same rules if it was going to be a fair society. We are not ruled by a king, a high priest, a czar or any other kind of absolute ruler. We are ruled by laws. Laws that we all agree to, and there are consequences for breaking those laws. Just like currency which only has value because we all agree that it has value, laws only work because most of us agree to follow them and to punish those who don’t. If the person in charge of enforcing the rules didn’t follow them and got away with it, then the whole system would collapse. The Enlightenment philosophers boiled their idea down into a McNugget size catch phrase – the Rule of Law – because even in the 18th century if you couldn’t fit an important idea on a fortune cookie size piece of paper, nobody paid attention.
Of course, we all know that in real life the law hasn’t always applied to everyone equally. As the daughter of an attorney and a member of the most incarcerated generation in US history, believe me, I know that very well. But just because real life does match the ideal, doesn’t mean we should throw the system out entirely. Especially since no one has a better system to replace it with.
To wrap up, Rule of Law means we are governed by laws we create and which we agree to follow instead of being governed by the whims of a Czar. While our system is far from perfect, that is the ideal we are working towards. If you want an easy-to-read book about the realities of how our laws are applied, I recommend A Colony in a Nation by journalist Chris Hayes. It is well written, easy to understand and incredibly illuminating. For now, I hope this entry helps you understand what politicians and pundits mean when they toss off the catchphrase Rule of Law.
Thanks for checking us out and please keep coming back cool stories about history.
