III. Sic Semper Tyrannis  –  All In God’s Time

Beyond Virtue: The Duty To Remove A Tyrant

Saint Thomas Aquinas provided a defense of disobedience to unjust authority, citing the Christian martyrs’ disobedience of Roman law and rejection of its authority. A gentle, peaceful man he stated that, in the face of tyranny, one has a duty to disobey the this-world-lawful authority. He then made the case that this duty demands the removal of a tyrant, including justifiable tyrannicide.

When what is ordered by an authority is opposed to the object for which that authority was constituted … not only is there no obligation to obey the authority, but one is obliged to disobey it, as did the holy martyrs who suffered death rather than obey the impious commands of tyrants.” [Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, trans. J.G. Dawson (Oxford, 1959), pp. 329–30.]

It is fitting, said Saint Thomas, that one who rids a society of a tyrant be “praised and rewarded” as “one who liberates his country by killing a tyrant.”

These thoughts of Saint Thomas are simply an echo of many ancient philosophers and writers, including Plato, Aristotle, Thales, Solon, Xenophon, Seneca, Plutarch and Cicero who justified removal of and, in some cases, killing a tyrant. This position has been stated, with approval, from the Middle Ages to the present day.

Killing No Murder

In  England in 1657 A.D. a pamphlet, “Killing, No Murder,” was published anonymously which advocated the assassination of the ruling tyrant, Oliver Cromwell. The pamphlet asked three questions:

What is a Tyrant?  Is killing a tyrant honorable? Will such killing be beneficial to the state?

The pamphlet cited Hugo Grotius (1583 A.D. – 1645 A.D.) as authority for the conclusions about the removal of a tyrant:

First, therefore, ‘a Usurper that by only force possesses himself of government, and by force only keep it, is yet in the state of war with every man,’ and therefore everything is lawful against him that is lawful against an open enemy, whom every private man hath a right to kill.

John of Salisbury

John of Salisbury (1115 A.D. – 1180 A.D.), a catholic bishop and associate of Archbishop Thomas Becket of Canterbury during his dispute with King Henry II of England, was one of the most famous thinkers and political philosophers of the “twelfth century Renaissance.” He presented both a religious justification for tyrannicide and a justification based on reason alone.

In his book, The Policraticus, he stated that tyranny was a crime against “the body of justice itself”  and he advocated for the legitimacy of tyrannicide in certain cases. He said that each member of a political community had a duty to see that justice was served in the whole, and that included a duty to eradicate an incorrigible tyrant.  He asserted  that “whoever does not prosecute [the tyrant] transgresses against himself and against the whole body of the secular republic.” He saw a tyrant as an “image of depravity . . . [who] spring(s) from evil and should be cut down with the axe wherever he grows.”

In 1649, John Milton, in The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, also presented a defense of tyrannicide.

Modern Day Justification For Removing Tyrants

For Abraham Lincoln it was justified to remove a tyrant, including assassination, if the tyrant exercised power for an extended period of time and other means had not delivered the people from the tyranny.

Assassination of Tyrants is current United States policy. Political, legal and moral scholars have repeated the justifications for the removal of tyrants from ancient times, from the Middle Ages, and during our more recent history.  If in modern terms the tyrant is deemed guilty of what is called “terrorism,” then the tyrant’s killing is justified.[See, e.g., Johnson III, Boyd M. (Spring 1992). “Executive Order 12,333: The Permissibility of an American Assassination of a Foreign Leader”. Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository. Cornell University Law ; and Barton Gellman (October 21, 2001). “CIA Weighs ‘Targeted Killing’ Missions: Administration Believes Restraints Do Not Bar Singling Out Individual Terrorists”. The Washington Post.]

A Message To Present Day Tyrants

Today’s tyrants will all relinquish  the worldly power they believe themselves to have and each of them will be called to judgment by God who made them. He will do this when He decides to, not when they will it, and in His time.

A message to them follows, based on and paraphrasing a letter to Oliver Cromwell in the Killing No Murder pamphlet.

To his Highness, Present Day Tyrant,

To your Highness justly belongs the Honour of dying for the people, and it cannot choose but be unspeakable consolation to you in the last moments of your life to consider with how much benefit to the world you are like to leave it. ‘Tis then only, our Tyrant, the titles you now usurp, will be truly yours; you will then be indeed the deliverer of your country, and free it from a bondage little inferior to that from which Moses delivered his. You will then be that true reformer which you would be thought. Religion shall be then restored, liberty asserted and government have those privileges they have fought for. We shall then hope that other laws will have place besides those of the sword, and that justice shall be otherwise defined than the will and pleasure of the strongest; and we shall then hope men will keep oaths again, and not have the necessity of being false and perfidious to preserve themselves, and be like their rulers. All this we hope from your Highness’s happy expiration, who are the true father of your country; for while you live we can call nothing ours, and it is from your death that we hope for our inheritances. Let this consideration arm and fortify your Highness’s mind against the fears of death and the terrors of your evil conscience, that the good you will do by your death will something balance the evils of your life.