The law of the land is venerable and speaks through the venerability of the people's ancestors who, over time, inhabited and occupied the land and established thereby a way of life and a way of doing things and a sense of local membership that comes from geographic proximity. It is an abiding sense of membership, in contra-distinction to the visceral membership that kinship affords or the uplifting membership that comes with religion.
The law of the land enforces local custom.
The law of the land consecrates the land and gives it an enchanted character.
(Isn’t it a curious thing that the god of the Hebrews did not call Himself the One Who gave the Children of Israel their homeland but the One instead Who took them out of Egypt.)
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