[1849, original title: Resistance to Civil Government]
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 the 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…
But, to speak practically and
as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not
at one 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.