there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment 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 they
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 secondary 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 is
pronounced a benefactor and philanthropist.

  How does it become a man to behave toward this 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 them. All machines have their
friction; and possibly this does enough good to counterbalance 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 the 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 is, so
long as the established government cannot be resisted or changed
without public inconveniency, 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 as 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 any one
think that Massachusetts does exactly what is right at the present
crisis?

        "A drab of state, 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, near at home,
cooperate 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 materially wiser or better than the many. It is not so
important that many should be as 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