One of the more remarkable outcomes of the impeachment trial of Pres. Bill Clinton is the popular recognition that just because you break the law does not mean that you should be punished for it. It is a peculiar twist to the logic of a time when everyone wanted to get tough on criminals. Lock 'em up and throw away the keys was the constant refrain, advocated very ironically on the Democratic side by none other than Bill Clinton. The hypocrisy of the prime beneficiary of the new public creed on law and punishment that the impeachment trial has spawned notwithstanding, the latest popular sentiment is most welcome.

The 20th century has paid glorious tribute to the valiant violators of unjust laws - Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Rosa Park to name just a few the American public might recognize. Tragically, this century has also put millions of others through torture and death because even while celebrating these outlaws, as a people we continue to remain rooted to the untenable proposition that unconscionable laws too must be obeyed.

Perhaps it takes a scoundrel and a sleazebag like Clinton to disabuse us of our puerile notions. One wished, however, that the public sentiment transferred to weaker victims of overzealous prosecutors, such as, for instance, illegal aliens.

By government estimates, some 300,000 illegal aliens will enter and settle in the United States this year. The illegal alien population is expected to touch 6 million by the turn of this century. In the face of economic recession in the early 1990s, illegal aliens became political scapegoats for all of America's woes. Proposition 187 in California took square aim at them, barring them from all government benefits and seeking to enlist every California citizen as a full time spy.

Just as the fires of xenophobia were flaring deeper to singe even legal immigrants, the economy recovered and thankfully the generals of the night abandoned the alien lynch mobs to join the hoot party. Most immigrants do not realize just how close they came to lynching at the hands of the reactionary right and were rescued only by the inexplicable recovery of the American economy.

One wishes that Clinton who has won amnesty for himself thanks to the economic turnaround will have the guilt, compassion or greatness of heart in these booming times to extend America's largesse to the most vulnerable segments of American society, the illegal aliens, by seeking an amnesty for them too.

One cannot condone the alien smugglers or the businessmen who profit from the exploitation of their labor and misery. But one cannot but be in awe of the gallantry of hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens who have made a run for the American dream at grave personal risk.

They are heroes in the tradition of the venerable 103 passengers who disembarked at Plymouth, Mass., in 1620, on a cargo ship called Mayflower, passengers who included not just the Puritans that legend evokes, but also an assortment of thieves, drifters and drunkards.