or requires the most
disinterested virtue to sustain it. The slight reproach to
which the virtue of patriotism is commonly liable, the noble
are most likely to incur. Those who, while they disapprove
of the character and measures of a government, yield to it
their allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most
conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious
obstacles to reform. Some are petitioning the State to
dissolve the Union, to disregard the requisitions of the
President. Why do they not dissolve it themselves--the
union between themselves and the State--and refuse to pay
their quota into its treasury? Do not they stand in the same
relation to the State that the State does to the Union? And
have not the same reasons prevented the State from resisting
the Union which have prevented them from resisting the State?

How can a man be satisfied to entertain an opinion merely,
and enjoy _it_? Is there any enjoyment in it, if his
opinion is that he is aggrieved? If you are cheated out of
a single dollar by your neighbor, you do not rest satisfied
with knowing you are cheated, or with saying that you are
cheated, or even with petitioning him to pay you your due;
but you take effectual steps at once to obtain the full
amount, and see to it that you are never cheated again.
Action from principle, the perception and the performance of
right, changes things and relations; it is essentially
revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything
which was. It not only divided States and churches, it
divides families; ay, it divides the _individual_, separating
the diabolical in him from the divine.

Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or
shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have
succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men,
generally, under such a government as this, think that they
ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to
alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the
remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of
the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil.
_It_ makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and
provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority?
Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt? Why does it not
encourage its citizens to put out its faults, and _do_ better
than it would have them? Why does it always crucify Christ and
excommunicate Copernicus and