On the Duty of Civil Disobedience | Page 3

them. All machines have their friction; and possibly this does enough
good to counter-balance the evil. At any rate, it is a great evil to make a
stir about it. But when the friction comes to have its machine, and
oppression and robbery are organized, I say, let us not have such a
machine any longer. In other words, when a sixth of the population of a
nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a
whole country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army,
and subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest
men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent
is that fact that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the
invading army.
Paley, a common authority with many on moral questions, in his
chapter on the "Duty of Submission to Civil Government," resolves all
civil obligation into expediency; and he proceeds to say that "so long as
the interest of the whole society requires it, that it, so long as the
established government cannot be resisted or changed without public
inconveniencey, it is the will of God. . .that the established government
be obeyed--and no longer. This principle being admitted, the justice of
every particular case of resistance is reduced to a computation of the
quantity of the danger and grievance on the one side, and of the
probability and expense of redressing it on the other." Of this, he says,
every man shall judge for himself. But Paley appears never to have
contemplated those cases to which the rule of expediency does not
apply, in which a people, as well and an individual, must do justice,
cost what it may. If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a drowning
man, I must restore it to him though I drown myself. This, according to
Paley, would be inconvenient. But he that would save his life, in such a
case, shall lose it. This people must cease to hold slaves, and to make
war on Mexico, though it cost them their existence as a people.
In their practice, nations agree with Paley; but does anyone think that
Massachusetts does exactly what is right at the present crisis?
"A drab of stat, a cloth-o'-silver slut, To have her train borne up, and
her soul trail in the dirt."

Practically speaking, the opponents to a reform in Massachusetts are
not a hundred thousand politicians at the South, but a hundred thousand
merchants and farmers here, who are more interested in commerce and
agriculture than they are in humanity, and are not prepared to do justice
to the slave and to Mexico, cost what it may. I quarrel not with far-off
foes, but with those who, neat at home, co-operate with, and do the
bidding of, those far away, and without whom the latter would be
harmless. We are accustomed to say, that the mass of men are
unprepared; but improvement is slow, because the few are not as
materially wiser or better than the many. It is not so important that
many should be good as you, as that there be some absolute goodness
somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump. There are thousands
who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect
do nothing to put an end to them; who, esteeming themselves children
of Washington and Franklin, sit down with their hands in their pockets,
and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing; who even
postpone the question of freedom to the question of free trade, and
quietly read the prices-current along with the latest advices from
Mexico, after dinner, and, it may be, fall asleep over them both. What
is the price-current of an honest man and patriot today? They hesitate,
and they regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in
earnest and with effect. They will wait, well disposed, for other to
remedy the evil, that they may no longer have it to regret. At most, they
give up only a cheap vote, and a feeble countenance and Godspeed, to
the right, as it goes by them. There are nine hundred and ninety-nine
patrons of virtue to one virtuous man. But it is easier to deal with the
real possessor of a thing than with the temporary guardian of it.
All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a
slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral
questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the
voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am
not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I