because they are
physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in
all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand
it. Can there not be a government in which 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. The only
obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what
I think right. It is truly enough said that a corporation has no
conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation
with a conscience. Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of
their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents
of injustice. A common and natural result of an undue respect for law
is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal,
privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over
hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common
sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and
produces a palpitation of the heart. They have no doubt that it is a
damnable business in which they are concerned; they are all peaceably
inclined. Now, what are they? Men at all? or small movable forts and
magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power? Visit the
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 black arts--a mere shadow
and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and
already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments,
though it may be "Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried."

The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as
machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the
militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there
is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense;
but they put themselves on a level with