On the Duty of Civil Disobedience | Page 2

to be in the right, nor because
this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the
strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in all cases can
not be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. Can there not
be a government in which the majorities do not virtually decide right
and wrong, but conscience?--in which majorities decide only those
questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable? Must the
citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience
to the legislator? WHy has every man a conscience then? I think that
we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to
cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only
obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I
think right. It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience;
but a corporation on conscientious men is a corporation with a
conscience. Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of
their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents on
injustice. A common and natural result of an undue respect for the law
is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal,
privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over
hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common
sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and
produces a palpitation of the heart. They have no doubt that it is a
damnable business in which they are concerned; they are all peaceably
inclined. Now, what are they? Men at all? or small movable forts and
magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power? Visit
the Navy Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American
government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black
arts--a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out
alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with
funeral accompaniment, though it may be,
"Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, As his corse to the rampart
we hurried; Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot O'er the grave
where out hero was buried."

The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as
machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia,
jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free
exercise whatever of the judgement or of the moral sense; but they put
themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden
men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well.
Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt.
They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as
these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others--as most
legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders--serve the
state chiefly with their heads; and, as the rarely make any moral
distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as
God. A very few--as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great
sense, and men--serve the state with their consciences also, and so
necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as
enemies by it. A wise man will only be useful as a man, and will not
submit to be "clay," and "stop a hole to keep the wind away," but leave
that office to his dust at least:
"I am too high born to be propertied, To be a second at control, Or
useful serving-man and instrument To any sovereign state throughout
the world."
He who gives himself entirely to his fellow men appears to them
useless and selfish; but he who gives himself partially to them in
pronounced a benefactor and philanthropist.
How does it become a man to behave toward the American government
today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. I
cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my
government which is the slave's government also.
All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse
allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its
inefficiency are great and unendurable. But almost all say that such is
not the case now. But such was the case, they think, in the Revolution
of '75. If one were to tell me that this was a bad government because it
taxed certain foreign commodities brought to its ports, it is most

probable that I should not make an ado about it, for I can do without