ON THE DUTY OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

I heartily accept the motto, --“That government is best which governs the least,” and I should like to see it acted up more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe, --“That government is best which governs not at all,” and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections that 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 standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode, which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican War, the work of a comparatively few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for, in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure.
This American government, -- what is but a tradition, thought a decent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to its will. It is a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves; and, if ever they should use it in earnest as a real one against each other, it will surely split.
But it is not the less necessary for this; for the people must have some complicated machinery or other, and can hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government that they have. Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed one, even impose on themselves, for their own advantage. It is excellent, we must all allow; yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way. It does not keep the country free. It does 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 somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got out of its way. For government is an expedient by which men would fain succeed in letting one another alone; and, as has been said, when it is not expedient, the governed are most let alone by it. Trade and commerce e, if they were not made of India rubber, would never manage to bounce over the obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way; and, if one were to judge these men wholly by the affects of their actions, and not partly by their intentions, they would deserve to be classed and punished with those mischievous persons who put obstructions on the railroads.
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.
After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long time continue to rule, is not because they are most likely 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 cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. Can there not be a government which 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 the 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 respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation that 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 of conscience 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 of 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 their5 wills, aye, 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 damn 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, business such a man the American government can make, or such it can make 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 accompaniments, though it may be

“ NOT A DRUM WAS HEARD, NOR A FUNERAL NOTE,
AS HIS CORPSE TO THE RAMPARTS WE HURRIED;
NOT A SOLDIER DISCHARGED HIS FAREWELL SHOT
O’ER THE GRAVE WHERE OUR HERO WE BURIED.”

The masses 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, &c. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever 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 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 by it as enemies. A wise man will only be as 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,
Top be a secondary at control,
Or useful serving-man and instrument
To any sovereign state throughout the world.”