The 10 Commandments are the moral foundation of law, embodying the basic principles upon which Western law is based.
Last week, we saw that an underlying principle of law is respect for life. We believe human life is of infinite value because man is created in God's image. For that reason, the Decalogue commands, “Thou shalt not kill.”
God also commands, “Thou shalt not steal,” thus establishing our second principle of Western law: respect for property.
Because of our respect for property, John Locke recognized “life, liberty, and property” as our most basic God-given rights. Our Fifth and 14th Amendments protect the right to “life, liberty, or property,” and all 50 states have strict laws prohibiting not only theft but other forms of stealing: embezzlement, extortion, criminal fraud, and copyright violations, to name only a few.
Courts have often quoted this Commandment, giving it an expansive meaning. As the Florida Supreme Court said in Addison v. State of Florida (1928):
The word ‘steal’ may not be technically synonymous in meaning with the words ‘to commit larceny,’ but it is nevertheless a very strong and significant word, and the commonly accepted meaning of that word is very well defined in the Standard Dictionary as follows: ‘To steal is to commit larceny.’ The eighth commandment [Protestant numbering] of the decalogue merely reads, ‘Thou shalt not steal,’ yet was it ever doubted that it prohibited larceny of all kinds?
In Highway Truck Drivers and Helpers Local 107 v. Cohen, 182 F. Supp. 608 (1960), a federal court held that requiring a labor union to pay attorney fees for lawyers who were defending officials charged with defrauding the union, would violate “basic and fundamental requirements of justice and fair play called for by §501(a) of the Act – requirements which are indeed developed but one step beyond the Seventh Commandment [Catholic numbering] itself….”
In a West Virginia ballot fraud case, Doll v. Bender (1904), Supreme Court of Appeals Judge Dent stated in a concurring opinion:
I am aware that there are some people who at least profess to believe that elections, being human institutions, are governed solely by human inclinations, and are not subject to the supervision or control of that moral code of ethics promulgated by God through the greatest of all human law-givers from Sinai’s hoary summit. This, however, is a great and grievous error, for the eighth commandment [back to the Protestant numbering again!] “Thou shalt not steal,” forbids not only larceny as defined in the Criminal Code, but also the unjust deprivation of every person’s civil, religious, political, and personal rights of life, liberty, reputation, and property-even though done under the sanction of legal procedure.
In a U.S. Supreme Court case, Smyth, Executor, v. United States (1937), three dissenting Justices applied the Decalogue to a refusal to pay interest to bondholders:
The answer ought not to be difficult, where men anxiously uphold the doctrine that a contractual obligation ‘remains binding upon the conscience of the sovereign’ and reverently fix their gaze on the Eighth Commandment [When will they learn that numbering the Commandments creates confusion?].
Some say coveting motivates capitalism, but they misunderstand what coveting means. Coveting is (1) wanting what God doesn’t want you to have; (2) wanting something obsessively; (3) wanting something so much that you resent the person who has it; or (4) wanting something so much that you are willing to use illegal or unethical means to get it. Wanting something like a new car or house, combined with a willingness to work hard or sacrifice to get it, is not coveting. That’s the American dream.
But then the Marxist whispers in our ears, “You and I can’t afford a car like that. Why should he be allowed to have one?” The Marxist sows the winds of coveting, envy, jealousy and covetousness, and those who listen to him reap the whirlwind of class warfare and revolution, grand theft as a national economic policy, and, not surprisingly, universal impoverishment and misery.
Some say this Commandment does not endorse private property, because it could mean “Thou shalt not steal from the state” or the commune. But we need to read the commandment in tandem with the last commandment, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house; thy shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, not his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.” Clearly, this applies to private property of all kinds. This commandment is given as a hedge, an added layer of protection. One who covets his neighbor’s property is more likely to steal. One who covets his neighbor’s spouse is more likely to commit adultery. Those who have been taught not to covet are more likely to obey the commands against stealing and adultery.
Liberals assert that “human rights are more important than property rights,” but this is a misnomer. All rights are human rights. Property has no rights; by property rights, we mean the right of a person to buy, sell, own and use property.
Property rights are not mere materialism. Property is an extension of the person; we use property for self-expression, creativity, and productivity. Property in the hands of private individuals is a bulwark against tyranny. If the government owns all property, it makes resistance nearly impossible.
When Naboth refused to sell his vineyard to the apostate King Ahab, Ahab at least knew the law of Israel well enough to understand that he could not force Naboth to sell. But his wife Jezebel, a pagan Phoenician princess, had no respect for biblical law and obtained the vineyard by having Naboth executed on false charges and then having his property forfeited. For this crime, God punished both Jezebel and Ahab with death (I Kings 21:1-19).
Our Fifth Amendment protects against such abuses, noting, “Nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.” Our Alabama Constitution provides even more explicit protection in Article I § 23: “Private property shall not be taken for or applied to, public use unless just compensation be first made therefor; nor shall private property be taken for private use … without the consent of the owner.”
In his Larger Catechism, Martin Luther emphasized that we must do more than refrain from stealing; we must do the opposite. The opposite of stealing is not refraining from theft; rather, it is generosity. “Let him that stole steal no more, but, rather, let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth,” Paul said in Ephesians 4:28.
As with respect for life, we see that following the commands of the Decalogue helps us live a good life and establish a just society. But, sinners that we are, we know that we fall far short of fulfilling the Law. The Law, therefore, convicts us of our sin and shows us our need for salvation. It drives us to the foot of the Cross, where we find forgiveness through the shed blood of our Lord Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:24).
Colonel Eidsmoe serves as Professor of Constitutional Law for the Oak Brook College of Law & Government Policy (obcl.edu) and as Senior Counsel for the Foundation for Moral Law (morallaw.org). He may be contacted for speaking engagements at eidsmoeja@juno.com.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819News.com.
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