Part 261 (2/2)
OBJECTION XI.
This withdrawing from government is pharisaical--”Shall we, 'weak, sinful men,'” one says, ”perhaps even more sinful than the slaveholder, cry out, No Union with Slaveholders?” Such a course is wanting in brotherly kindness.
ANSWER. Because we refuse to aid a wrong-doer in his sin, we by no means proclaim, or a.s.sume, that we think our _whole character_ better than his. It is neither pharisaical to have opinions, nor presumptuous to guide our lives by them. If I have joined with others in doing wrong, is it either presumptuous or unkind, when my eyes are opened, to refuse to go any further with them in their career of guilt? Does love to the thief require me to help him in stealing? Yet this is all we refuse to do. We will extend to the slaveholder all the courtesy he will allow. If he is hungry, we will feed him; if he is in want, both hands shall be stretched out for his aid. We will give him full credit for all the good that he does, and our deep sympathy in all the temptations under whose strength he falls. But to help him in his sin, to remain partners with him in the slave-trade, is more than he has a right to ask. He would be a strange preacher who should set out to reform his circle by joining in all their sins! It is a principle similar to that which the tipsy Duke of Norfolk acted on, when seeing a drunken friend in the gutter, he cried out, ”My dear fellow, I can't help you out, but I'll do better, I'll lie down by your side.”
OBJECTION XII.
But consider, the abstaining from all share in Government will leave bad men to have everything their own way--admit Texas--extend slavery, &c. &c.
ANSWER. That is no matter of mine. G.o.d, the great conservative power of the Universe, when he established the right, saw to it that it should always be the safest and best. He never laid upon a poor finite worm the staggering load of following out into infinity the complex results of his actions. We may rest on the bosom of Infinite Wisdom, confident that it is enough for us to do justice, he will see to it that happiness results.
OBJECTION XIII.
But the same conscientious objection against promising your support to government, ought to lead you to avoid actually giving your support to it by paying taxes or sueing in the courts.
ANSWER. This is what logicians call a _reductio ad absurdum_: an attempt to prove our principle unsound by showing that, fairly carried out, it leads to an absurdity. But granting all it asks, it does not saddle us with any absurdity at all. It is perfectly possible to live without pet.i.tioning, sueing, or holding stocks.
Thousands in this country have lived, died, and been buried, without doing either. And does it load us with any absurdity to prove that we shall be obliged to do from principle, what the majority of our fellow-citizens do from choice? We lawyers may think it is an absurdity to say a man can't sue, for, like the Apostle at Ephesus, it touches our ”craft,” but that don't go far to prove it. Then, as to taxes, doubtless many cases might be imagined, when every one would allow it to be our duty to resist the slightest taxation, did Christianity allow it, with ”war to the hilt.” If such cases may ever arise, why may not this be one?
Until I become an Irishman, no one will ever convince me that I ought to vote, by proving that I ought not to pay taxes! Suppose all these difficulties do really encompa.s.s us, it will not be the first time that the doing of one moral duty has revealed a dozen others which we never thought of. The child has climbed the hill over his native village, which he thought the end of the world, and lo! there are mountains beyond! He won't remedy the matter by creeping back to his cradle and disbelieving in mountains!
But then, is there any such inconsistency in non-voters sueing and paying taxes?
Look at it. A. and B. have agreed on certain laws, and appointed C.
to execute them. A. owes me, who am no party to the contract, a just debt, which his laws oblige him to pay. Do I acknowledge the rightfulness of his relation to B. and C. by asking C. to use the power given him, in my behalf? It appears to me that I do not. I may surely ask A. to pay me my debt--why not then ask the keeper, whom he has appointed over himself, to make him do so?
I am a prisoner among pirates. The mate is abusing me in some way contrary to their laws. Do I recognize the rightfulness of the Captain's authority, by asking him to use the power the mate has consented to give him, to protect me? It seems to me that I do not necessarily endorse the means by which a man has acquired money or power, when I ask him to use either in my behalf.
An alien does not recognize the rightfulness of a government by living under it. It has always been held that an English subject may swear allegiance to an usurper and yet not be guilty of treason to the true king. Because he may innocently acknowledge the king _de facto_ (the king _in deed_,) without a.s.suming him to be king _de jure_ (king by _right_.) The distinction itself is as old as the time of Edward the First. The principle is equally applicable to suits. It has been universally acted on and allowed. The Catholic, who shrank from acknowledging the heretical Government of England, always, I believe, sued in her courts.
Who could convince a common man, that by sueing in Constantinople or Timbuctoo, he does an act which makes him responsible for the character of those governments?
Then, as for taxes. It is only our voluntary acts for which we are responsible. And when did government ever trust tax-paying to the voluntary good will of its subjects? When it does so, I, for one, will refuse to pay.
When did any sane man conclude that our Saviour's voluntary payment of a tax acknowledged the rightfulness of Rome's authority over Judea?
”The States,” says Chief Justice Marshall, ”have only not to elect Senators, and this government expires without a struggle.”
Every November, then, we _create_ the government anew. Now, what ”instinct” will tell a common-sense man, that the act of a _sovereign_,--voting--which creates a wicked government, is, _essentially_ the same as the submission of a _subject_,--tax-paying,--an act done without our consent. It should be remembered, that we vote as _sovereigns_,--we pay taxes as _subjects_. Who supposes that the humble tax-payer of Austria, who does not, perhaps, know in what name the charter of his bondage runs, is responsible for the doings of Metternich? And what sane man likens his position to that of the voting sovereign of the United States?
My innocent acts may, through others' malice, result in evil. In that case, it will be for my best judgment to determine whether to continue or cease them. They are not thereby rendered essentially sinful. For instance, I walk out on Sabbath morning. The priest over the way will exclaim, ”Sabbath-breaker,” and the infidel will delude his followers, by telling them I have no regard for Christianity. Still, it will be for me to settle which, in present circ.u.mstances, is best,--to remain in, and not be misconstrued, or to go out and bear a testimony against the superst.i.tious keeping of the day. Different circ.u.mstances will dictate different action on such a point.
I may often be the _occasion_ of evil when I am not responsible for it. Many innocent acts _occasion_ evil, and in such case all I am bound to ask myself before doing such _innocent act_, is, ”Shall I occasion, on the whole, more harm or good.” There are many cases where doing a duty even, we shall occasion evil and sin in others.
To save a slaveholder from drowning, when we know he has made a will freeing his slaves, would put off, perhaps forever, their emanc.i.p.ation, but of course that is not my fault. This making a man responsible for all the evil his acts, _incidentally_, without his will, occasion, reminds me of that principle of Turkish law which Dr. Clarke mentions, in his travels, and which they call ”homicide by an intermediate cause.” The case he relates is this: A young man in love poisoned himself, because the girl's father refused his consent to the marriage. The Cadi sentenced the father to pay a fine of $80, saying ”if you had not had a daughter, this young man had not loved; if he had not loved, he had never been disappointed; if not disappointed, he would never have taken poison.” It was the same Cadi possibly, who sentenced the island of Samos to pay for the wrecking of a vessel, on the principle that ”if the island had not been in the way, the vessel would never have been wrecked!”
Then of taxes on imports. Buying and selling, and carrying from country to country, is good and innocent. But government, if I trade here, will take occasion to squeeze money out of me. Very well. I shall deliberate whether I will cease trading, and deprive them of the opportunity, or go on and use my wealth to reform them. 'Tis a question of expediency, not of right, which my judgment, not my conscience, must settle. An act of mine, innocent in itself, and done from right motives, no after act of another's can make a sin.
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