I must get off him
first, that he may pursue his contemplations too. See what gross
inconsistency is tolerated. I have heard some of my townsmen say, "I
should like to have them order me out to help put down an insurrection
of the slaves, or to march to Mexico;- see if I would go"; and yet
these very men have each, directly by their allegiance, and so
indirectly, at least, by their money, furnished a substitute. The
soldier is applauded who refuses to serve in an unjust war by those
who do not refuse to sustain the unjust government which makes the
war; is applauded by those whose own act and authority he disregards
and sets at naught; as if the state were penitent to that degree
that it differed one to scourge it while it sinned, but not to that
degree that it left off sinning for a moment. Thus, under the name
of Order and Civil Government, we are all made at last to pay homage
to and support our own meanness. After the first blush of sin comes
its indifference; and from immoral it becomes, as it were, unmoral,
and not quite unnecessary to that life which we have made.
The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most
disinterested virtue to sustain it.
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