Heroes have fought well on their stumps when their legs were
shot off, but I never heard of any good done by such a government as
that.
The only government that I recognize- and it matters not how few are
at the head of it, or how small its army- is that power that
establishes justice in the land, never that which establishes
injustice. What shall we think of a government to which all the
truly brave and just men in the land are enemies, standing between
it and those whom it oppresses? A government that pretends to be
Christian and crucifies a million Christs every day!
Treason! Where does such treason take its rise? I cannot help
thinking of you as you deserve, ye governments. Can you dry up the
fountains of thought? High treason, when it is resistance to tyranny
here below, has its origin in, and is first committed by, the power
that makes and forever re-creates man. When you have caught and hung
all these human rebels, you have accomplished nothing but your own
guilt, for you have not struck at the fountain-head. You presume to
contend with a foe against whom West Point cadets and rifled cannon
point not. Can all the art of the cannon-founder tempt matter to
turn against its maker? Is the form in which the founder thinks he
casts it more essential than the constitution of it and of himself?
The United States have a coffle of four millions of slaves.
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