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1There is an incessant influx of novelty into the world, and yet we tolerate incredible dulness. I need only suggest what
2kind of sermons are still listened to in the most enlightened countries. There are such words as joy and sorrow, but
3they are only the burden of a psalm, sung with a nasal twang, while we believe in the ordinary and mean. We think that
4we can change our clothes only. It is said that the British Empire is very large and respectable, and that the United
5States are a first-rate power. We do not believe that a tide rises and falls behind every man which can float the
6British Empire like a chip, if he should ever harbor it in his mind. Who knows what sort of seventeen-year locust will
7next come out of the ground? The government of the world I live in was not framed, like that of Britain, in after-dinner
8conversations over the wine. The life in us is like the water in the river. It may rise this year higher than man has
9ever known it, and flood the parched uplands; even this may be the eventful year, which will drown out all our muskrats.
10It was not always dry land where we dwell. I see far inland the banks which the stream anciently washed, before science
11began to record its freshets. Every one has heard the story which has gone the rounds of New England, of a strong and
12beautiful bug which came out of the dry leaf of an old table of apple-tree wood, which had stood in a farmer's kitchen
13for sixty years, first in Connecticut, and afterward in Massachusetts,--from an egg deposited in the living tree many
14years earlier still, as appeared by counting the annual layers beyond it; which was heard gnawing out for several weeks,
15hatched perchance by the heat of an urn. Who does not feel his faith in a resurrection and immortality strengthened by
16hearing of this? Who knows what beautiful and winged life, whose egg has been buried for ages under many concentric
17layers of woodenness in the dead dry life of society, deposited at first in the alburnum of the green and living tree,
18which has been gradually converted into the semblance of its well-seasoned tomb,--heard perchance gnawing out now for
19years by the astonished family of man, as they sat round the festive board,--may unexpectedly come forth from amidst
20society's most trivial and handselled furniture, to enjoy its perfect summer life at last! I do not say that John or
21Jonathan will realize all this; but such is the character of that morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to
22dawn. The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day
23to dawn. The sun is but a morning star. THE END ON THE DUTY OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE I heartily accept the motto,--"That
24government is best which governs least;" and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically.
25Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe--"That government is best which governs not at all;" and
26when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an
27expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have
28been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought
29against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which
30is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before
31the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the
32standing government as their tool; for, in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure. This
33American government,--what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to
34posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the vitality and force of a single living man; for
35a 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
36it in earnest as a real one against each other, it will surely split. But it is not the less necessary for this; for the
37people must have some complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which they
38have. Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed on, even impose on themselves, for their own advantage.
39It is excellent, we must all allow; yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity
40with which it got out of its way. It does not keep the country free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate.
41The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat
42more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way. For government is an expedient, by which men would fain
43succeed in letting one another alone; and, as has been said, when it is most expedient, the governed are most let alone
44by it. Trade and commerce, if they were not made of India rubber, would never manage to bounce over obstacles which
45legislators are continually putting in their way; and, if one were to judge these men wholly by the effects of their
46actions, and not partly by their intentions, they would deserve to be classed and punished with those mischievous
47persons who put obstructions on the railroads. But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call
48themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make
49known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it. After all, the
50practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period
51continue, to rule, is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the
52minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in all cases can
53not be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. Can there not be a government in which the majorities do not
54virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience?--in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of
55expediency is applicable? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the
56legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not
57desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to
58assume, is to do at any time what I think right. It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a
59corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience. Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means
60of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice. A common and natural result of
61an undue respect for the law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates,
62powder-monkeys and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, aye, against
63their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart.
64They have no doubt that it is a damnable business in which they are concerned; they are all peaceably inclined. Now,
65what are they? Men at all? or small movable forts and magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power? Visit
66the 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
67black arts, a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say,
68buried under arms with funeral accompaniment, though it may be "Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, As his corpse
69to the ramparts we hurried; Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot O'er the grave where our hero we buried."
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