that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.

How can a man be satisfied to entertain an opinion merely, and enjoy it? Isthere any enjoyment in it, if his opinion is that he is aggrieved? If you arecheated out of a single dollar by your neighbor, you do not rest satisfied withknowing that you are cheated, or with saying that you are cheated, or even withpetitioning him to pay you your due; but you take effectual steps at once toobtain the full amount, and see that you are never cheated again. Action fromprinciple, the perception and the performance of right, changes things andrelations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly withanything which was. It not only divides States and churches, it divides families;ay, 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 toamend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgressthem at once? Men generally, under such a government as this, think that theyought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They thinkthat, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is thefault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes itworse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? Why doesit 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, andexcommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington andFranklin rebels?

Only his vote can hasten the abolition of slavery whoasserts his own freedom by his vote

It is truly enough said that acorporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is acorporation with a conscience. Law never made men a whit more just; and, bymeans of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agentsof injustice

It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradicationof any, even the most enormous, wrong; he may still properly have otherconcerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it

There are thousands who are in opinionopposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end tothem; who, esteeming themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sitdown 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 offree trade, and quietly read the prices-current along with the latest advices fromMexico, after dinner, and, it may be, fall asleep over them both. What is theprice-current of an honest man and patriot today? They hesitate, and theyregret, and sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in earnest and witheffect. They will wait, well disposed, for others to remedy the evil, that theymay no longer have it to regret. At most, they give only a cheap vote, and afeeble countenance and God-speed, to the right, as it goes by them. There arenine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man. But it iseasier to deal with the real possessor of a thing than with the temporaryguardian of it

without them. All machines have their friction; and possibly this does enoughgood to counterbalance the evil. At any rate, it is a great evil to make a stirabout it. But when the friction comes to have its machine, and oppression androbbery are organized, I say, let us not have such a machine any longer. Inother words, when a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertakento be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country is unjustly overrunand conquered by a foreign army, and subjected to military law, I think that it isnot too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this dutythe more urgent is the fact that the country so overrun is not our own, but oursis the invading army

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 bettergovernment. Let every man make known what kind of government wouldcommand his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it

legislators are continually putting in their way; and, if one were to judge thesemen wholly by the effects of their actions and not partly by their intentions,

The government itself, which is only the mode whichthe people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused andperverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexicanwar, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standinggovernment as their tool; for, in the outset, the people would not haveconsented to this measure