I heartily accept the motto,—“That government is best which governs
least;” and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and
systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I
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 all governments are sometimes,
inexpedient. 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 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 comparatively a 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 it but a tradition, though a
recent 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 his 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 hear its din, to satisfy that idea of
government which they have. Governments show thus how successfully men can
be imposed on, 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 in 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 most expedient, the
governed are most let alone by it. Trade and commerce, if they were not
made of India rubber, would never manage to bounce over obstacles which
legislators are continually putting in their way; and, if one were to judge
these men wholly by the effects 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 period 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 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 of 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 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 their 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 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 corpse to the ramparts we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O’er the grave where our hero we 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, &c. In most cases 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 by it as enemies. 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 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
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 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 anyone 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, 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 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
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 others to remedy the evil, that they may no longer have
it to regret. At most, they give 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 chequers 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 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 it 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. When the majority shall at length vote for
the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to
slavery, or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished by
their vote. They will then be the only slaves. Only his vote
can hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own freedom by his
vote.
I hear of a convention to be held at Baltimore, or elsewhere, for the
selection of a candidate for the Presidency, made up chiefly of editors,
and men who are politicians by profession; but I think, what is it to any
independent, intelligent, and respectable man what decision they may come
to, shall we not have the advantage of his wisdom and honesty,
nevertheless? Can we not count upon some independent votes? Are there not
many individuals in the country who do not attend conventions? But no: I
find that the respectable man, so called, has immediately drifted from his
position, and despairs of his country, when his country has more reasons
to despair of him. He forthwith adopts one of the candidates thus selected
as the only available one, thus proving that he is himself
available for any purposes of the demagogue. His vote is of no more
worth than that of any unprincipled foreigner or hireling native, who may
have been bought. Oh for a man who is a man, and, as my neighbor
says, has a bone in his back which you cannot pass your hand through! Our
statistics are at fault: the population has been returned too large. How
many men are there to a square thousand miles in the country?
Hardly one. Does not America offer any inducement for men to settle here?
The American has dwindled into an Odd Fellow,—one who may be known
by the development of his organ of gregariousness, and a manifest lack of
intellect and cheerful self-reliance; whose first and chief concern, on
coming into the world, is to see that the alms-houses are in good repair;
and, before yet he has lawfully donned the virile garb, to collect a fund
for the support of the widows and orphans that may be; who, in short,
ventures to live only by the aid of the Mutual Insurance company, which
has promised to bury him decently.
It is not a man’s duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to
the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still
properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least,
to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to
give it practically his support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and
contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them
sitting upon another man’s shoulders. I must get off him first, that
he may pursue his contemplations too. See what gross inconsistency is
tolerated. I have heard some of my townsmen say, “I should like to
have them order me out to help put down an insurrection of the slaves, or
to march to Mexico,—see if I would go;” and yet these very men
have each, directly by their allegiance, and so indirectly, at least, by
their money, furnished a substitute. The soldier is applauded who refuses
to serve in an unjust war by those who do not refuse to sustain the unjust
government which makes the war; is applauded by those whose own act and
authority he disregards and sets at naught; as if the State were penitent
to that degree that it hired one to scourge it while it sinned, but not to
that degree that it left off sinning for a moment. Thus, under the name of
Order and Civil Government, we are all made at last to pay homage to and
support our own meanness. After the first blush of sin, comes its
indifference; and from immoral it becomes, as it were, unmoral, and
not quite unnecessary to that life which we have made.
The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested
virtue to sustain it. The slight reproach to which the virtue of
patriotism is commonly liable, the noble are most likely to incur. Those
who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a government,
yield to it their allegiance and support, are undoubtedly its most
conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to
reform. Some are petitioning the State to dissolve the Union, to disregard
the requisitions of the President. Why do they not dissolve it
themselves,—the union between themselves and the State,—and
refuse to pay their quota into its treasury? Do not they stand in same
relation to the State, that the State does to the Union? And have not the
same reasons prevented the State from resisting the Union, which have
prevented them from resisting the State?
How can a man be satisfied to entertain an opinion merely, and enjoy
it? Is there any enjoyment in it, if his opinion is that he is
aggrieved? If you are cheated out of a single dollar by your neighbor, you
do not rest satisfied with knowing you are cheated, or with saying that
you are cheated, or even with petitioning him to pay you your due; but you
take effectual steps at once 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. It not only divided states and churches, it divides families; aye, it
divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him from the
divine.
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
its wise minority? Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt? Why does
it not encourage its citizens to be on the alert to point out its faults,
and do better than it would have them? Why does it always crucify
Christ, and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington
and Franklin rebels?
One would think, that a deliberate and practical denial of its authority
was the only offence never contemplated by government; else, why has
it not assigned its definite, its suitable and proportionate penalty? If
a man who has no property refuses but once to earn nine shillings for the
State, he is put in prison for a period unlimited by any law that I know,
and determined only by the discretion of those who placed him there; but if
he should steal ninety times nine shillings from the State, he is soon
permitted to go at large again.
If the 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, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then
perhaps you may consider whether 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 adopting the ways which the State has provided for remedying the
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 every thing to do, but something; and
because he cannot do every thing, it is not necessary that he should
do something wrong. It is not my business to 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? But in
this case the State has provided no way: its very Constitution is the
evil. This may seem to be harsh and stubborn and unconcilliatory; but it
is to treat with the utmost kindness and consideration the only spirit
that can appreciate or deserves it. So is all change for the better, like
birth and death which convulse the body.
I do not hesitate to say, that those who call themselves abolitionists
should at once effectually withdraw their support, both in person and
property, from the government of Massachusetts, and not wait till they
constitute a majority of one, before they suffer the right to prevail
through them. I think that it is enough if they have God on their side,
without waiting for that other one. Moreover, any man more right than his
neighbors constitutes a majority of one already.
I meet this American government, or its representative, the State
government, directly, and face to face, once a year, no more, in
the person of its tax-gatherer; this is the only mode in which a man
situated as I am necessarily meets it; and it then says distinctly,
Recognize me; and the simplest, the most effectual, and, in the present
posture of affairs, the indispensablest mode of treating with it on this
head, of expressing your little satisfaction with and love for it, is to
deny it then. My civil neighbor, the tax-gatherer, is the very man I have
to deal with,—for it is, after all, with men and not with parchment
that I quarrel,—and he has 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, or as a man, until he is obliged to consider whether he
shall treat me, his neighbor, for whom he has respect, as a neighbor and
well-disposed man, or as a maniac and disturber of the peace, and see if
he can get over this obstruction to his neighborliness without a ruder and
more impetuous thought or speech corresponding with his action? I know
this well, that if one thousand, if one hundred, if ten men whom I could
name,—if ten honest men only,—aye, if one HONEST
man, in this State of Massachusetts, ceasing to hold slaves, were
actually to withdraw from this copartnership, and be locked up in the
county jail therefor, it would be the abolition of slavery in America. For
it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well
done is done for ever. But we love better to talk about it: that we say is
our mission. Reform keeps many scores of newspapers in its service, but
not one man. If my esteemed neighbor, the State’s ambassador, who
will devote his days to the settlement of the question of human rights in
the Council Chamber, instead of being threatened with the prisons of
Carolina, were to sit down the prisoner of Massachusetts, that State which
is so anxious to foist the sin of slavery upon her sister,—though at
present she can discover only an act of inhospitality to be the ground of
a quarrel with her,—the Legislature would not wholly waive the
subject of the following winter.
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man
is also a prison. The proper place today, the only place which
Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less desponding spirits, is
in her prisons, to be put out and locked out of the State by her own act,
as they have already put themselves out by their principles. It is there
that the fugitive slave, and the Mexican prisoner on parole, and the
Indian come to plead the wrongs of his race, should find them; on that
separate, but more free and honorable ground, where the State places those
who are not with her but against her,—the only house
in a slave-state in which a free man can abide with honor. If any think
that their influence would be lost there, and their voices no longer
afflict the ear of the State, that they would not be as an enemy within
its walls, they do not know by how much truth is stronger than error, nor
how much more eloquently and effectively he can combat injustice who has
experienced a little in his own person. Cast your whole vote, not a strip
of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless while
it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is
irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight. If the alternative is to
keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will
not hesitate which to choose. If a thousand men were not to pay their
tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it
would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed
innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable
revolution, if any such is possible. If the tax-gatherer, or any other
public officer, asks me, as one has done, “But what shall I
do?” my answer is, “If you really wish to do any thing, resign
your office.” When the subject has refused allegiance, and the
officer has resigned his office, then the revolution is accomplished. But
even suppose blood should flow. Is there not a sort of 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.
I have contemplated the imprisonment of the offender, rather than the
seizure of his goods,—though both will serve the same
purpose,—because they who assert the purest right, and consequently
are most dangerous to a corrupt State, commonly have not spent much time
in accumulating property. To such the State renders comparatively small
service, and a slight tax is wont to appear exorbitant, particularly if
they are obliged to earn it by special labor with their hands. If there
were one who lived wholly without the use of money, the State itself would
hesitate to demand it of him. But the rich man—not to make any
invidious comparison—is always sold to the institution which makes
him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue; for money
comes between a man and his objects, and obtains them for him; it was
certainly no great virtue to obtain it. It puts to rest many questions
which he would otherwise be taxed to answer; while the only new question
which it puts is the hard but superfluous one, how to spend it. Thus his
moral ground is taken from under his feet. The opportunities of living are
diminished in proportion as what are called the “means” are
increased. The best thing a man can do for his culture when he is rich is
to endeavor to carry out those schemes which he entertained when he was
poor. Christ answered the Herodians according to their condition.
“Show me the tribute-money,” said he;—and one took a
penny out of his pocket;—if you use money which has the image of
Cæsar on it, and which he has made current and valuable, that is, if
you are men of the State, and gladly enjoy the advantages of
Cæsar’s government, then pay him back some of his own when he
demands it; “Render therefore to Cæsar that which is Cæsar’s
and to God those things which are God’s,”—leaving them no
wiser than before as to which was which; for they did not wish to know.
When I converse with the freest of my neighbors, I perceive that, whatever
they may say about the magnitude and seriousness of the question, and
their regard for the public tranquillity, the long and the short of the
matter is, that they cannot spare the protection of the existing
government, and they dread the consequences of disobedience to it to their
property and families. For my own part, I should not like to think that I
ever rely on the protection of the State. But, if I deny the authority of
the State when it presents its tax-bill, it will soon take and waste all
my property, and so harass me and my children without end. This is hard.
This 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 hire 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. A man may grow rich in Turkey
even, if he will be in all respects a good subject of the Turkish
government. Confucius said,—“If a State is governed by the
principles of reason, poverty and misery are subjects of shame; if a State
is not governed by the principles of reason, riches and honors are the
subjects of shame.” No: until I want the protection of Massachusetts
to be extended to me in some distant southern port, where my liberty is
endangered, or until I am bent solely on building up an estate at home by
peaceful enterprise, I can afford to refuse allegiance to Massachusetts,
and her right to my property and life. It costs me less in every sense to
incur the penalty of disobedience to the State, than it would to obey. I
should feel as if I were worth less in that case.
Some years ago, the State met me in behalf of the church, and commanded me
to pay a certain sum toward the support of a clergyman whose preaching my
father attended, but never I myself. “Pay it,” it said, “or
be locked up in the jail.” I declined to pay. But, unfortunately,
another man saw fit to pay it. I did not see why the schoolmaster should
be taxed to support the priest, and not the priest the schoolmaster; for I
was not the State’s schoolmaster, but I supported myself by
voluntary subscription. I did not see why the lyceum should not present
its tax-bill, and have the State to back its demand, as well as the
church. However, at the request of the selectmen, I condescended to make
some such statement as this in writing:—“Know all men by these
presents, that I, Henry Thoreau, do not wish to be regarded as a member of
any incorporated society which I have not joined.” This I gave to
the town-clerk; and he has it. The State, having thus learned that I did
not wish to be regarded as a member of that church, has never made a like
demand on me since; though it said that it must adhere to its original
presumption that time. If I had known how to name them, I should then have
signed off in detail from all the societies which I never signed on to;
but I did not know where to find such a complete list.
I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this
account, for one night; and, as I 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, I could not help being
struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I
were 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 nor for a moment feel confined, and the
walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar. I felt as if I alone of
all 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 the other side of that stone wall. I could not but
smile to see how industriously they locked the door on my meditations,
which followed them out again without let or hindrance, 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 a spite, 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 its friends from its 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 wit or 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 who obey
a higher law than I. They force me to become like themselves. I do not
hear of men being forced to live this way or that by masses
of men. What sort of life were that 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 strait, 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. I am not the son of the
engineer. I perceive that, when an acorn and a chestnut fall side by side,
the one does not remain inert to make way for the other, but both obey
their own laws, and spring and grow and flourish as best they can, till
one, perchance, overshadows and destroys the other. If a plant cannot live
according to its nature, it dies; and so a man.
The night in prison was novel and interesting enough. The prisoners in
their shirt-sleeves were enjoying a chat and the evening air in the
door-way, when I entered. But the jailer said, “Come, boys, it is
time to lock up;” and so they dispersed, and I heard the sound of
their steps returning into the hollow apartments. My room-mate was
introduced to me by the jailer as “a first-rate fellow and a clever
man.” When the door was locked, he showed me where to hang my hat,
and how he managed matters there. The rooms were whitewashed once a month;
and this one, at least, was the whitest, most simply furnished, and
probably the neatest apartment in town. He naturally wanted to know where I
came from, 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 an honest man, 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 it.” As
near as I could discover, he had probably gone to bed in a barn when
drunk, and smoked his pipe there; and so a barn was burnt. He had the
reputation of being a clever man, had been there some three months waiting
for his trial to come on, and would have to wait as much longer; but he
was quite domesticated and contented, since he got his board for nothing,
and thought that he was well treated.
He occupied one window, and I the other; and I saw, that, if one stayed
there long, his principal business would be to look out the window. I had
soon read all the tracts that were left there, and examined where former
prisoners had broken out, and where a grate had been sawed off, and heard
the history of the various occupants of that room; for I found that even
here there was a history and a gossip which never circulated beyond the
walls of the jail. Probably this is the only house in the town where
verses are composed, which are afterward printed in a circular form, but
not published. I was shown quite a long list of verses which were composed
by some young men who had been detected in an attempt to escape, who
avenged themselves by singing them.
I pumped my fellow-prisoner as dry as I could, for fear I should never see
him again; but at length he showed me which was my bed, and left me to
blow out the lamp.
It was like travelling 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, nor 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 its institutions before. This is one
of its peculiar institutions; for it is a shire town. I began to
comprehend what its inhabitants were about.
In the morning, our breakfasts were put through the hole in the door, in
small oblong-square tin pans, made to fit, and holding a pint of
chocolate, with 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 at haying in a neighboring 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.
When I came out of prison,—for some one interfered, and paid the
tax,—I did not perceive that great changes had taken place on the
common, such as he observed who went in a youth, and emerged a gray-headed
man; and yet a change had to my eyes come over the scene,—the
town, and State, and country,—greater than any that 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;
that they did not greatly purpose to do right; that they were a distinct
race from me by their prejudices and superstitions, as the Chinamen and
Malays are; that, in their sacrifices to humanity they ran no risks, not
even to their property; that, after all, they were not so noble but they
treated the thief as he had treated them, and hoped, by a certain outward
observance and a few prayers, and by walking in a particular straight
though useless path from time to time, to save their souls. This may be to
judge my neighbors harshly; for I believe that most of them are not aware
that they have such an institution as the jail in their village.
It was formerly 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 crossed to represent the grating of a jail window, “How
do ye do?” My neighbors did not thus salute me, but first looked at
me, and then at one another, as if I had returned from a long journey. I
was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker’s to get a shoe
which was mended. 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,—was in the midst of a
huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off; and then
the State was nowhere to be seen.
This is the whole history of “My Prisons.”
I have never declined paying the highway tax, because I am as 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 I 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 man, or a musket to shoot one with,—the
dollar is innocent,—but 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 advantages of her I
can, as is usual in such cases.
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 than the State requires. If
they pay the tax from a mistaken interest in the individual taxed, to save
his property or prevent his going to jail, it is because they have not
considered wisely how far they let their private feelings interfere with
the public good.
This, then, is my position at present. But one cannot be too much on his
guard in such a case, lest his actions be biassed by obstinacy, or an 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, this people mean well; they are only ignorant;
they would do better if 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 heat, without ill-will, without personal feeling
of any kind, demand of you a few shillings only, without the possibility,
such is their constitution, of retracting or altering their present
demand, and without the possibility, on your side, of appeal to any other
millions, why expose yourself to this overwhelming brute force? You do not
resist cold and hunger, the winds and the waves, thus obstinately; you
quietly submit to a thousand similar necessities. You do not put your head
into the fire. But just in proportion as I regard this as not wholly a
brute force, but partly a human force, and consider that I have relations
to those millions as to so many millions of men, and not of mere brute or
inanimate things, I see that appeal is possible, first and
instantaneously, from them to the Maker of them, and, secondly, from them
to themselves. But, if I put my head deliberately into the fire, there is
no appeal to fire or to the Maker of fire, and I have only myself to
blame. If I could convince myself that I have any right to be satisfied
with men as they are, and to treat them accordingly, and not according, in
some respects, to my requisitions and expectations of what they and I
ought to be, then, like a good Mussulman and fatalist, I should endeavor
to be satisfied with things as they are, and say it is the will of God.
And, above all, there is this difference between resisting this and a
purely brute or natural force, that I can resist this with some effect;
but I cannot expect, like Orpheus, to change the nature of the rocks and
trees and beasts.
I do not wish to quarrel with any man or nation. I do not wish to split
hairs, to make fine distinctions, or set myself up as better than my
neighbors. I seek rather, I may say, even an excuse for conforming to the
laws of the land. I am but too ready to conform to them. Indeed I have
reason to suspect myself on this head; and each year, as the tax-gatherer
comes round, I find myself disposed to review the acts and position of the
general and state governments, and the spirit of the people to discover a
pretext for conformity.
“We must affect our country as our parents,
And if at any time we alienate
Out love of industry from doing it honor,
We must respect effects and teach the soul
Matter of conscience and religion,
And not desire of rule or benefit.”
I believe that the State will soon be able to take all my work of this
sort out of my hands, and then I shall be no better patriot than my
fellow-countrymen. Seen from a lower point of view, the Constitution, with
all its faults, is very good; the law and the courts are very respectable;
even this State and this American government are, in many respects, very
admirable, and rare things, to be thankful for, such as a great many have
described them; seen from a higher still, and the highest, who shall say
what they are, or that they are worth looking at or thinking of at all?
However, the government does not concern me much, and I shall bestow the
fewest possible thoughts on it. It is not many moments that I live under a
government, even in this world. If a man is thought-free, fancy-free,
imagination-free, that which is not never for a long time appearing
to be to him, unwise rulers or reformers cannot fatally interrupt
him.
I know that most men think differently from myself; but those whose lives
are by profession devoted to the study of these or kindred subjects
content me as little as any. Statesmen and legislators, standing so
completely within the institution, never distinctly and nakedly behold it.
They speak of moving society, but have no resting-place without it. They
may be men of a certain experience and discrimination, and have no doubt
invented ingenious and even useful systems, for which we sincerely thank
them; but all their wit and usefulness lie within certain not very wide
limits. They are wont to forget that the world is not governed by policy
and expediency. Webster never goes behind government, and so cannot speak
with authority about it. His words are wisdom to those legislators who
contemplate no essential reform in the existing government; but for
thinkers, and those who legislate for all time, he never once glances at
the subject. I know of those whose serene and wise speculations on this
theme would soon reveal the limits of his mind’s range and
hospitality. Yet, compared with the cheap professions of most reformers,
and the still cheaper wisdom and eloquence of politicians in general, his
are almost the only sensible and valuable words, and we thank Heaven for
him. Comparatively, he is always strong, original, and, above all,
practical. Still his quality is not wisdom, but prudence. The
lawyer’s truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent
expediency. Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned
chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing. He well
deserves to be called, as he has been called, the Defender of the
Constitution. There are really no blows to be given by him but defensive
ones. He is not a leader, but a follower. His leaders are the men of
’87. “I have never made an effort,” he says, “and
never propose to make an effort; I have never countenanced an effort, and
never mean to countenance an effort, to disturb the arrangement as
originally made, by which the various States came into the Union.”
Still thinking of the sanction which the Constitution gives to slavery, he
says, “Because it was part of the original compact,—let it
stand.” Notwithstanding his special acuteness and ability, he is
unable to take a fact out of its merely political relations, and behold it
as it lies absolutely to be disposed of by the intellect,—what, for
instance, it behoves a man to do here in America today with regard to
slavery, but ventures, or is driven, to make some such desperate answer as
the following, while professing to speak absolutely, and as a private
man,—from which what new and singular code of social duties might be
inferred?—“The manner,” says he, “in which the
governments of those States where slavery exists are to regulate it, is
for their own consideration, under the responsibility to their
constituents, to the general laws of propriety, humanity, and justice, and
to God. Associations formed elsewhere, springing from a feeling of
humanity, or any other cause, have nothing whatever to do with it. They
have never received any encouragement from me and they never will.”
[These extracts have been inserted since the Lecture was read —HDT]
They who know of no purer sources of truth, who have traced up its stream
no higher, stand, and wisely stand, by the Bible and the Constitution, and
drink at it there with reverence and humanity; but they who behold where
it comes trickling into this lake or that pool, gird up their loins once
more, and continue their pilgrimage toward its fountain-head.
No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America. They are
rare in the history of the world. There are orators, politicians, and
eloquent men, by the thousand; but the speaker has not yet opened his
mouth to speak who is capable of settling the much-vexed questions of the
day. We love eloquence for its own sake, and not for any truth which it
may utter, or any heroism it may inspire. Our legislators have not yet
learned the comparative value of free-trade and of freedom, of union, and
of rectitude, to a nation. They have no genius or talent for comparatively
humble questions of taxation and finance, commerce and manufactures and
agriculture. If we were left solely to the wordy wit of legislators in
Congress for our guidance, uncorrected by the seasonable experience and
the effectual complaints of the people, America would not long retain her
rank among the nations. For eighteen hundred years, though perchance I
have no right to say it, the New Testament has been written; yet where is
the legislator who has wisdom and practical talent enough to avail himself
of the light which it sheds on the science of legislation.
The authority of government, even such as I am willing to submit
to,—for I will cheerfully obey those who know and can do better than
I, and in many things even those who neither know nor can do so
well,—is still an impure one: to be strictly just, it must have the
sanction and consent of the governed. It can have no pure right over my
person and property but what I concede to it. The progress from an
absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is
a progress toward a true respect for the individual. Even the Chinese
philosopher was wise enough to regard the individual as the basis of the
empire. Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible
in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards
recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really
free and enlightened State, until the State comes to recognize the
individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power
and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please myself
with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and
to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not
think it inconsistent with its own repose, if a few were to live aloof from
it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties
of neighbors and fellow-men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and
suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a
still more perfect and glorious State, which also I have imagined, but not
yet anywhere seen.
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