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t_, and the enactment of more just laws, after the present government is overturned. Nothing can justify a revolution, a conflict, a waste of treasure and blood, which are not going _to gain anything_ in the end.--Again, the last four years' experience of European nations may read us a lesson. 6. To justify rebellion, or what is the same thing, violent resistance to the execution of the laws, it is necessary that something more than a _small fraction_ of the people should rise in such a resistance. If the people in general are ready for it, and are willing to run all the hazards of a rebellious conflict with the government, conscious that they have righteousness and the God of righteousness on their side; this is a very different affair from what it would be, if only a minority of the people were ready for rebellion. Such a minority have no right, on account of their deemed injuries, to plunge the nation into a civil war, for the purpose of over-turning a government which suits the great mass of the people;--a civil war, in which there is every prospect, that the government and the majority who aim to support it will prevail; and prevailing, must crush their hostile opponents, this hasty and reckless minority. These are some of the things which appear necessary, in order to justify violent resistance of Law. They must _all_ exist, or such resistance would be criminal,--contrary to reason, to benevolence, and to Christ. It is not a thing to be expected at all among mankind, that all laws should be right, or "just and equal." Human legislation must be expected to bear the marks of an imperfection, which attaches itself to everything human. If obedience to government were obligatory, only on the condition that all the laws of that government are just; then, such obedience would mean nothing at all, and every man would be absolved from all allegiance to the government, and from all obligations to obey. Such is man, so limited his wisdom and so imperfect his holiness, that human laws must necessarily be imperfect, and must, therefore, necessarily operate hardly in some instances, upon more or less of the people. It is impossible, that the thing should be otherwise--in the very nature of the case, it is impossible. And if every individual were allowed to be the judge in his own case, whether or not the law operated so hardly upon him that he might disobey; _then_ his _obligation_ to obedience would mean just nothing a
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