Warrior135
Verified User
ON THE DUTY OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
I heartily accept the motto, “the government is best which governs least”; and I should like to see our very own government impressed upon by the citizenry to accept a smaller, more focused role, in protecting our people, our culture, and our rights.
The creators of our nation had the foresight to label, correctly . Our rights as unalienable and granted to us by our creator, our claim to birthright as an American. Those elected to represent us have no power to grant or deny us a natural right or misconstrue such a right as a privilege . Our forefathers had presence of mind to pen this as self evident , and enshrine it in our constitution, the origin of law to which we all acquiesced, to form the fabric of our United States .
“that government is best which governs least”
Carried out .. Finally amounts to this which I also mostly ascribe --
“the government is best which governs not at all”
And when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government we will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes inexpedient.
Dangerously, the action to which we require expediency is often been separate from righteousness, laws passed by imperfect men at distance are frequently devoid of rightness . Failing to correctly afford the individual citizen his preeminence, having it exchanged for prescriptions of men, whom in many cases have usurped your own true individual authority.
The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. The government itself, which was only the vehicle which the people have chosen to execute their will, is now a separate and powerful independent entity, out of control of the citizenry.
They now claim broad authority to rule over us as peasants, using as tools to maintain control, real and implied threats, propaganda in the media apparatus, broad and unequal taxation, and a powerful police state.
The government does not keep the people free, it did not settle the West, it does not educate. The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished’ and it would have done more, if the government had not sometimes got in the way .
It had been said that if trade and commerce were not made of india-rubber, that had been able to bounce over obstacles which legislators had continually put in their way; and if one were to judge these men wholly by the their actions not upon the effects and intentions, they would deserve to be classed and punished by those mischievious persons who put the obstructions ahead of their works .
But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, i ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.
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.
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 of injustice.
A common and undue respect for the law that you may see are a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates all, marching over hill and dale to the wars, some against their common sense and conscience, which makes for very steep marching indeed, for it is a damnable business in which they are concerned; all these peaceably inclined. Now, what are they? Men at all? Or small movable forts, masses of infantry, and magazines at the service of some unscrupulous man in power?
Behold the airman of the domestic air forces that terrorize god’s peaceful sky above the American citizenry, spying with great zeal against the populace beneath him at behest of a far away powerful man. Such a ‘man’ as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with it’s 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, thought it may be,
‘not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, as his course to the rampart we hurried; not a soldier discharged his farewell shot o’er the grave where our hero was buried’
The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are an army, the jailers, the agent, the beaurocracy, the i.t. personnel who spy on your electronic devices, the apparatus of the police state, constables , posse comitatus, etc. In most cases in their action there is no free exercise whatever of judgment or of moral sense; and perhaps someday wooden men can be manufactured to serve their 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 they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few-- 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:
Most damnable are those who maintain their office though their conscience betrays to them that they there serve the devil with their actions. They truly allow themselves to be forged into a knife that will impale their very own soul.
“I am too high born to be propertied, To be second at control, or useful as a servant-man and instrument To any sovereign state throughout the world.”
All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when it’s tyranny or it’s inefficiency are great and unendurable. Some even 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 it’s ports, it is most probable that i should not make an ado about it, for i can not do without them. All machines have their friction; and possibly this does enough to counterbalance the evil; at any rate, it is a great evil to make a stir about it.
But when the machine comes to make friction and it’s operation is oppression and robbery that is organized, I say, let us not have such a machine any longer.
Our mode of voicing approval or disapproval; 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’m not vitally concerned that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its’ obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that is should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men.
Many disregard the requisitions of the president. But why do they not sever the relation themselves -- “and refuse to pay their quota into its treasury?”
I’m not against taxation necessarily, so long as the citizen who pays his tax or his community receives some benefit that he alone probably could not do . Such as building a bridge over a river through funds raised by taxation . This example is an appropriate use of taxpayer money.
Lest we forget, all that is of value that is produced was made in the private sector, the government produces nothing, it takes from the productivity of the people a certain percentage, to afford it’s overseers to impress upon us rules and regulations. And in rare cases like the building of roads, it assembles ingredients that the private sector produced. The more it takes in tax ‘a monetized share of productivity’ the less there is available and circulated in the personal market .
I pay the salary of everyone in employ of the government, when I was taxed while buying my shoes, did they offer me the option to abstain from paying their salary? No
I am their reluctant boss, but nonetheless reprimand my employees when they misbehave .
If they don’t like it, say I, get some job or engage in industry of productive value.
Because how can a man be satisfied to entertain an opinion merely, and still enjoy it?
Is there any enjoyment in an opinion alone, if his opinion is that he is aggrieved? If you are cheated of $20 dollars by your neighbor, do you rest satisfied knowing that you are cheated?
Are you satisfied alone by saying you are cheated, or even with petitioning him to pay you your due? Or do you take effectual steps to obtain the full amount, and see that you are never cheated again.
Action from principle, the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything which was.
Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?
Men, generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil.
But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not cherish it’s wise minority?
Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt? Why does it not encourage it’s citizens to put out it’s faults, and be better than it would have remedy for them. Why does it always crucify Christ and excommunicate Copernicus, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels?
One would think, that a deliberate and practical denial of it’s authority was the only offense never contemplated by it’s government.
If injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth--certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, a crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider weather the remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that i do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.
As for adapting to the ways the state has provided for evil, I know not of such ways. They take too much time, and a man’s life will be gone. I have other affairs to attend to. I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad. A man has not everything to do, but something; and because he cannot do everything, it is not necessary that he should be petitioning the Governor or the Legislature any more than it is theirs to petition me; and if they should not hear my petition, what should i do then?
In this case the state has provided no way: it’s very construction is evil. This may seem to be harsh and stubborn and unconciliatory; but it is to treat with the utmost kindness the only spirit that can appreciate or deserves it.
With men and not parchment do i have quarrel--as it is they that have voluntarily chosen to be an agent of the government. How shall he ever know well what he is and does as an officer of the government, until he is obliged to consider whether he will treat me, his neighbor and well-disposed man, as a sort of maniac and disturber of the peace.
I know this well, that if one thousand, if one hundred, if ten honest men only -- ay, if one HONEST man, were actually to withdraw from this co-partnership and stand upon the rock of righteousness we would effect REAL change .
For it matters not how small the beginnings may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever.
But we love better to talk about it: that we say is our mission.
Those who allow themselves to be the tools this state, ask me, as one has done, “But what shall I do?” my answer is, “If you really wish to do anything , resign your office.” when the subject has refused allegiance, and the officer has resigned from office, then the revolution is accomplished. But even suppose blood shed when the conscience is wounded? Through this wound a man’s real manhood and immortality flow out, and he bleeds to an everlasting death. I see this blood flowing now.
When i converse with the freest of my neighbors, i ask of the regard for the public tranquility, the long and short of the matter is they cannot spare the protection of the existing government, they dread the consequences to their property and families of disobedience to it.
For my own part, I should not like to think that i ever rely on protection of the state. But if i deny the authority of the state it may soon take up and waste all my property, and so harass me and my children without end.
This hardship makes it impossible for a man to live honestly, and at the same time comfortably, in outward respects.
It will not be worth the while to accumulate property; that would be sure to go again. You must rent or squat somewhere, and raise but a small crop, and eat that soon. You must live within yourself, and depend upon yourself always tucked up and ready for a start, and not have many affairs.
When I had paid no tax for six years, I was once put into jail on this account, for one night; and, stood considering the walls of solid stone, two or three feet thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating which strained the light, and was struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated man as mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up.
I wondered that it should have concluded at length that this was the best use it could put me to, and had never thought to avail itself of my services in some way. I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through before they could get to be as free as i was.
“I did not for a moment feel confined, the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar. I felt as if i alone of my townsmen had paid my tax.
They plainly did not know how to treat me, but behaved like persons who are underbred. In every threat and in every compliment there was a blunder; for they thought that my chief desire was to stand on the other side of that stone wall.
I could not but smile to see how industriously they slammed and locked the door on my meditations, which followed them out again without let or hinderance, and they were really all that was dangerous.
As they could not reach me, they had resolved to punish my body; just as boys, if they cannot come at some person against whom they have spite, they will abuse his dog. I saw that the state was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know it’s friends from it’s foes, and i lost all my remaining respect for it, and pitied it.
Thus the state never intentionally confronts a man’s sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior honesty, but with superior physical strength.
I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest. What force has a multitude? They only can force me to obey a law higher than myself. They would force me to submit to become like themselves. I do not hear of men being forced to live one way or another by masses of men. What sort of life would that be to live?
When I meet a government which says to me
“Your money or your life”
Why should i be in haste to give it my money? It may be in a great straight, and not know what to do: I cannot help that. It must help itself; do as i do. It is not worth the while to snivel about it. I am not responsible for the successful working of the machinery of society.
This night in prison was novel and interesting enough. The prisoners in their shirtsleeves were enjoying a chat and the evening air in the doorway, when I entered. But the jailer said, “come, boys, it is time to lock up”; and so they dispersed, with the sounds of their steps returning to their hollow apartments. My room-mate was introduced by the jailer as “a first-rate fellow and clever man.” When the door was locked, he showed where to hang his hat, and how he managed matters there. The rooms were whitewashed once a month; and this one, at least, was most simply furnished, and probably neatest apartment in town. He naturally wanted to know from where i came, and what brought me there; and, when i had told him, i asked him in my turn how he came there, presuming him to be honest, of course; and as the world goes, I believe he was.
“Why,” said he, “they accuse me of burning a barn; but I never did” As near as i could discover, he had probably gone to bed in a barn while drunk, and fell asleep while smoking his pipe there; and so a barn was burnt. He had the reputation of being a clever man, and had been there some three months, but he was quite domesticated and contented, since he got his board for nothing, and thought that he was well treated.
Each occupied one another of the two windows , and found if one stayed there long, his principal business would be to look out that window. He’d soon read all the tracts that were left there, and examined where former prisoners had broken out, where a grate had been sawed off, and heard the history of the various occupants of that room; for i found that there was a history and gossip which never circulated beyond the walls of the jail.
It was like traveling into a far country, such as i had never expected to behold, to lie there for one night. It seemed to me that i never had heard the town clock strike before, not the evening sounds of the village; for we slept with the windows open, which were inside the grating. It was to see my native village in the light of the Middle Ages, and our Concord was turned into a Rhine stream, and visions of knights and castles passed before me. They were the voices of old burghers that i heard in the streets. I was an involuntary spectator and auditor of whatever was done and said in the kitchen of the adjacent village inn-- a wholly new and rare experience to me. It was a closer view of my native town. I was fairly inside of it. I never had seen it’s institutions before. This is one of it’s peculiar institutions; for it is a shire town. I began to comprehend what it’s inhabitants were about.
In the morning, our breakfasts were put through a hole in the door, placed in small oblong-square tin pans, made to fit, it’s contents a pint of chocolate pudding, brown bread, and an iron spoon. When they called for the vessels again, i was green enough to return what bread i had left, but my comrade seized it, and said that i should lay that up for lunch or dinner. Soon after he was let out to work a neighboring hay field, whither he went every day, and would not be back till noon; so he bade me good day, saying that he doubted if he should see me again.
Sure enough soon there after I was led out of prison-- for some one interfered, and paid my tax debt -- I did not perceive that great changes had taken place on the common, such as he observed by a man who went in a youth and emerged a gray-headed man; and yet a change had come to my eyes come over the scene -- the town, the state, and country, greater than any mere time could effect. I saw yet more distinctly the state in which i lived. I saw to what extent the people among whom i lived could be trusted as good neighbors and friends; that their friendship was for summer weather only.
It was the custom in our village, when a poor debtor came out of jail, for his acquaintances to salute him, looking through their fingers, which were to represent the crossed bar windows, “how do ye do” My neighbors did not this salute me, but first looked at me , and then one another, as if i had returned from a long journey .
I was captured and put into jail as i was going to the shoemaker’s to get a shoe which required mending. When i was let out the next morning, i proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour -- for the horse was soon tackled -- we were in the midst of a huckleberry field , on one of our highest hills, and two miles off, and the state was nowhere to be seen.
Thus concludes my time in Prison .
Said he, I have never declined paying the highway tax, because I am a desirous of being a good neighbor as I am of being a bad subject ; and as for supporting schools, i am doing my part to educate my fellow countrymen now. It is for no particular item in the tax bill that if refuse to pay it. I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the state, to withdraw and stand aloof from it effectually.
I do not care to trace the course of my dollar, if I could, till it buys a musket to shoot a man with -- that dollar is innocent -- but am I for giving it? I am concerned to trace the effects of my allegiance.
In fact, I quietly declare war with the state, after my fashion, though I will still make use and get what advantage of her I can, as is usual in such cases. My war will be fought unceasingly, peace be declared, only when that state would affirm and respect my Natural Rights, when it would provide for real Justice - in Righteousness , when it would make itself so small as to be unnoticeable in daily life, that when I am taxed; i can feel that my money is spent well. Then My quiet war will be Won.
If others pay the tax which is demanded of me, from a sympathy with the state, they do but what they have already done in their own case, or rather they abet injustice to a greater extent then the state requires.
This is my position at present. But one cannot be too much on guard in such a case, lest his actions be biased by obstinacy or with undue regard for the opinions of men. Let him see that he does only what belongs to himself and to the hour.
I think sometimes, Why, these people mean well, they are only ignorant; they would do better if only they knew how: why give your neighbors this pain to treat you as they are not inclined to?
But I think again, This is no reason why I should do as they do, or permit others to suffer much greater pain of a different kind. Again, I sometimes say to myself, When many millions of men, without ill will, without personal feelings, demand of you a few shillings only, without the possibility, such is their constitution, of retracting or altering their present demand, without the possibility, on your side, of appeal to any other millions, why expose yourself to this overwhelming brute force?
[CONTINUED IN PART 2]
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I heartily accept the motto, “the government is best which governs least”; and I should like to see our very own government impressed upon by the citizenry to accept a smaller, more focused role, in protecting our people, our culture, and our rights.
The creators of our nation had the foresight to label, correctly . Our rights as unalienable and granted to us by our creator, our claim to birthright as an American. Those elected to represent us have no power to grant or deny us a natural right or misconstrue such a right as a privilege . Our forefathers had presence of mind to pen this as self evident , and enshrine it in our constitution, the origin of law to which we all acquiesced, to form the fabric of our United States .
“that government is best which governs least”
Carried out .. Finally amounts to this which I also mostly ascribe --
“the government is best which governs not at all”
And when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government we will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes inexpedient.
Dangerously, the action to which we require expediency is often been separate from righteousness, laws passed by imperfect men at distance are frequently devoid of rightness . Failing to correctly afford the individual citizen his preeminence, having it exchanged for prescriptions of men, whom in many cases have usurped your own true individual authority.
The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. The government itself, which was only the vehicle which the people have chosen to execute their will, is now a separate and powerful independent entity, out of control of the citizenry.
They now claim broad authority to rule over us as peasants, using as tools to maintain control, real and implied threats, propaganda in the media apparatus, broad and unequal taxation, and a powerful police state.
The government does not keep the people free, it did not settle the West, it does not educate. The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished’ and it would have done more, if the government had not sometimes got in the way .
It had been said that if trade and commerce were not made of india-rubber, that had been able to bounce over obstacles which legislators had continually put in their way; and if one were to judge these men wholly by the their actions not upon the effects and intentions, they would deserve to be classed and punished by those mischievious persons who put the obstructions ahead of their works .
But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, i ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.
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.
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 of injustice.
A common and undue respect for the law that you may see are a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates all, marching over hill and dale to the wars, some against their common sense and conscience, which makes for very steep marching indeed, for it is a damnable business in which they are concerned; all these peaceably inclined. Now, what are they? Men at all? Or small movable forts, masses of infantry, and magazines at the service of some unscrupulous man in power?
Behold the airman of the domestic air forces that terrorize god’s peaceful sky above the American citizenry, spying with great zeal against the populace beneath him at behest of a far away powerful man. Such a ‘man’ as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with it’s 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, thought it may be,
‘not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, as his course to the rampart we hurried; not a soldier discharged his farewell shot o’er the grave where our hero was buried’
The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are an army, the jailers, the agent, the beaurocracy, the i.t. personnel who spy on your electronic devices, the apparatus of the police state, constables , posse comitatus, etc. In most cases in their action there is no free exercise whatever of judgment or of moral sense; and perhaps someday wooden men can be manufactured to serve their 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 they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few-- 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:
Most damnable are those who maintain their office though their conscience betrays to them that they there serve the devil with their actions. They truly allow themselves to be forged into a knife that will impale their very own soul.
“I am too high born to be propertied, To be second at control, or useful as a servant-man and instrument To any sovereign state throughout the world.”
All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when it’s tyranny or it’s inefficiency are great and unendurable. Some even 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 it’s ports, it is most probable that i should not make an ado about it, for i can not do without them. All machines have their friction; and possibly this does enough to counterbalance the evil; at any rate, it is a great evil to make a stir about it.
But when the machine comes to make friction and it’s operation is oppression and robbery that is organized, I say, let us not have such a machine any longer.
Our mode of voicing approval or disapproval; 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’m not vitally concerned that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its’ obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that is should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men.
Many disregard the requisitions of the president. But why do they not sever the relation themselves -- “and refuse to pay their quota into its treasury?”
I’m not against taxation necessarily, so long as the citizen who pays his tax or his community receives some benefit that he alone probably could not do . Such as building a bridge over a river through funds raised by taxation . This example is an appropriate use of taxpayer money.
Lest we forget, all that is of value that is produced was made in the private sector, the government produces nothing, it takes from the productivity of the people a certain percentage, to afford it’s overseers to impress upon us rules and regulations. And in rare cases like the building of roads, it assembles ingredients that the private sector produced. The more it takes in tax ‘a monetized share of productivity’ the less there is available and circulated in the personal market .
I pay the salary of everyone in employ of the government, when I was taxed while buying my shoes, did they offer me the option to abstain from paying their salary? No
I am their reluctant boss, but nonetheless reprimand my employees when they misbehave .
If they don’t like it, say I, get some job or engage in industry of productive value.
Because how can a man be satisfied to entertain an opinion merely, and still enjoy it?
Is there any enjoyment in an opinion alone, if his opinion is that he is aggrieved? If you are cheated of $20 dollars by your neighbor, do you rest satisfied knowing that you are cheated?
Are you satisfied alone by saying you are cheated, or even with petitioning him to pay you your due? Or do you take effectual steps to obtain the full amount, and see that you are never cheated again.
Action from principle, the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything which was.
Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?
Men, generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil.
But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not cherish it’s wise minority?
Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt? Why does it not encourage it’s citizens to put out it’s faults, and be better than it would have remedy for them. Why does it always crucify Christ and excommunicate Copernicus, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels?
One would think, that a deliberate and practical denial of it’s authority was the only offense never contemplated by it’s government.
If injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth--certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, a crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider weather the remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that i do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.
As for adapting to the ways the state has provided for evil, I know not of such ways. They take too much time, and a man’s life will be gone. I have other affairs to attend to. I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad. A man has not everything to do, but something; and because he cannot do everything, it is not necessary that he should be petitioning the Governor or the Legislature any more than it is theirs to petition me; and if they should not hear my petition, what should i do then?
In this case the state has provided no way: it’s very construction is evil. This may seem to be harsh and stubborn and unconciliatory; but it is to treat with the utmost kindness the only spirit that can appreciate or deserves it.
With men and not parchment do i have quarrel--as it is they that have voluntarily chosen to be an agent of the government. How shall he ever know well what he is and does as an officer of the government, until he is obliged to consider whether he will treat me, his neighbor and well-disposed man, as a sort of maniac and disturber of the peace.
I know this well, that if one thousand, if one hundred, if ten honest men only -- ay, if one HONEST man, were actually to withdraw from this co-partnership and stand upon the rock of righteousness we would effect REAL change .
For it matters not how small the beginnings may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever.
But we love better to talk about it: that we say is our mission.
Those who allow themselves to be the tools this state, ask me, as one has done, “But what shall I do?” my answer is, “If you really wish to do anything , resign your office.” when the subject has refused allegiance, and the officer has resigned from office, then the revolution is accomplished. But even suppose blood shed when the conscience is wounded? Through this wound a man’s real manhood and immortality flow out, and he bleeds to an everlasting death. I see this blood flowing now.
When i converse with the freest of my neighbors, i ask of the regard for the public tranquility, the long and short of the matter is they cannot spare the protection of the existing government, they dread the consequences to their property and families of disobedience to it.
For my own part, I should not like to think that i ever rely on protection of the state. But if i deny the authority of the state it may soon take up and waste all my property, and so harass me and my children without end.
This hardship makes it impossible for a man to live honestly, and at the same time comfortably, in outward respects.
It will not be worth the while to accumulate property; that would be sure to go again. You must rent or squat somewhere, and raise but a small crop, and eat that soon. You must live within yourself, and depend upon yourself always tucked up and ready for a start, and not have many affairs.
When I had paid no tax for six years, I was once put into jail on this account, for one night; and, stood considering the walls of solid stone, two or three feet thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating which strained the light, and was struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated man as mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up.
I wondered that it should have concluded at length that this was the best use it could put me to, and had never thought to avail itself of my services in some way. I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through before they could get to be as free as i was.
“I did not for a moment feel confined, the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar. I felt as if i alone of my townsmen had paid my tax.
They plainly did not know how to treat me, but behaved like persons who are underbred. In every threat and in every compliment there was a blunder; for they thought that my chief desire was to stand on the other side of that stone wall.
I could not but smile to see how industriously they slammed and locked the door on my meditations, which followed them out again without let or hinderance, and they were really all that was dangerous.
As they could not reach me, they had resolved to punish my body; just as boys, if they cannot come at some person against whom they have spite, they will abuse his dog. I saw that the state was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know it’s friends from it’s foes, and i lost all my remaining respect for it, and pitied it.
Thus the state never intentionally confronts a man’s sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior honesty, but with superior physical strength.
I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest. What force has a multitude? They only can force me to obey a law higher than myself. They would force me to submit to become like themselves. I do not hear of men being forced to live one way or another by masses of men. What sort of life would that be to live?
When I meet a government which says to me
“Your money or your life”
Why should i be in haste to give it my money? It may be in a great straight, and not know what to do: I cannot help that. It must help itself; do as i do. It is not worth the while to snivel about it. I am not responsible for the successful working of the machinery of society.
This night in prison was novel and interesting enough. The prisoners in their shirtsleeves were enjoying a chat and the evening air in the doorway, when I entered. But the jailer said, “come, boys, it is time to lock up”; and so they dispersed, with the sounds of their steps returning to their hollow apartments. My room-mate was introduced by the jailer as “a first-rate fellow and clever man.” When the door was locked, he showed where to hang his hat, and how he managed matters there. The rooms were whitewashed once a month; and this one, at least, was most simply furnished, and probably neatest apartment in town. He naturally wanted to know from where i came, and what brought me there; and, when i had told him, i asked him in my turn how he came there, presuming him to be honest, of course; and as the world goes, I believe he was.
“Why,” said he, “they accuse me of burning a barn; but I never did” As near as i could discover, he had probably gone to bed in a barn while drunk, and fell asleep while smoking his pipe there; and so a barn was burnt. He had the reputation of being a clever man, and had been there some three months, but he was quite domesticated and contented, since he got his board for nothing, and thought that he was well treated.
Each occupied one another of the two windows , and found if one stayed there long, his principal business would be to look out that window. He’d soon read all the tracts that were left there, and examined where former prisoners had broken out, where a grate had been sawed off, and heard the history of the various occupants of that room; for i found that there was a history and gossip which never circulated beyond the walls of the jail.
It was like traveling into a far country, such as i had never expected to behold, to lie there for one night. It seemed to me that i never had heard the town clock strike before, not the evening sounds of the village; for we slept with the windows open, which were inside the grating. It was to see my native village in the light of the Middle Ages, and our Concord was turned into a Rhine stream, and visions of knights and castles passed before me. They were the voices of old burghers that i heard in the streets. I was an involuntary spectator and auditor of whatever was done and said in the kitchen of the adjacent village inn-- a wholly new and rare experience to me. It was a closer view of my native town. I was fairly inside of it. I never had seen it’s institutions before. This is one of it’s peculiar institutions; for it is a shire town. I began to comprehend what it’s inhabitants were about.
In the morning, our breakfasts were put through a hole in the door, placed in small oblong-square tin pans, made to fit, it’s contents a pint of chocolate pudding, brown bread, and an iron spoon. When they called for the vessels again, i was green enough to return what bread i had left, but my comrade seized it, and said that i should lay that up for lunch or dinner. Soon after he was let out to work a neighboring hay field, whither he went every day, and would not be back till noon; so he bade me good day, saying that he doubted if he should see me again.
Sure enough soon there after I was led out of prison-- for some one interfered, and paid my tax debt -- I did not perceive that great changes had taken place on the common, such as he observed by a man who went in a youth and emerged a gray-headed man; and yet a change had come to my eyes come over the scene -- the town, the state, and country, greater than any mere time could effect. I saw yet more distinctly the state in which i lived. I saw to what extent the people among whom i lived could be trusted as good neighbors and friends; that their friendship was for summer weather only.
It was the custom in our village, when a poor debtor came out of jail, for his acquaintances to salute him, looking through their fingers, which were to represent the crossed bar windows, “how do ye do” My neighbors did not this salute me, but first looked at me , and then one another, as if i had returned from a long journey .
I was captured and put into jail as i was going to the shoemaker’s to get a shoe which required mending. When i was let out the next morning, i proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour -- for the horse was soon tackled -- we were in the midst of a huckleberry field , on one of our highest hills, and two miles off, and the state was nowhere to be seen.
Thus concludes my time in Prison .
Said he, I have never declined paying the highway tax, because I am a desirous of being a good neighbor as I am of being a bad subject ; and as for supporting schools, i am doing my part to educate my fellow countrymen now. It is for no particular item in the tax bill that if refuse to pay it. I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the state, to withdraw and stand aloof from it effectually.
I do not care to trace the course of my dollar, if I could, till it buys a musket to shoot a man with -- that dollar is innocent -- but am I for giving it? I am concerned to trace the effects of my allegiance.
In fact, I quietly declare war with the state, after my fashion, though I will still make use and get what advantage of her I can, as is usual in such cases. My war will be fought unceasingly, peace be declared, only when that state would affirm and respect my Natural Rights, when it would provide for real Justice - in Righteousness , when it would make itself so small as to be unnoticeable in daily life, that when I am taxed; i can feel that my money is spent well. Then My quiet war will be Won.
If others pay the tax which is demanded of me, from a sympathy with the state, they do but what they have already done in their own case, or rather they abet injustice to a greater extent then the state requires.
This is my position at present. But one cannot be too much on guard in such a case, lest his actions be biased by obstinacy or with undue regard for the opinions of men. Let him see that he does only what belongs to himself and to the hour.
I think sometimes, Why, these people mean well, they are only ignorant; they would do better if only they knew how: why give your neighbors this pain to treat you as they are not inclined to?
But I think again, This is no reason why I should do as they do, or permit others to suffer much greater pain of a different kind. Again, I sometimes say to myself, When many millions of men, without ill will, without personal feelings, demand of you a few shillings only, without the possibility, such is their constitution, of retracting or altering their present demand, without the possibility, on your side, of appeal to any other millions, why expose yourself to this overwhelming brute force?
[CONTINUED IN PART 2]
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