Sturmabteilung

“ And if "King Stumm," who is now king in the realm of "social reform," should accomplish his purpose of annihilating every organization of workingmen, what in comparison with such a dictatorship would be the dictatorship of a Marius or a Sulla or of the French convention of 1792–1794? ”

“ It was hard for me, as you can judge, to confess that she had asked me a thing which it was beyond my power to do for her.
"'Dear angel,' I answered, 'the revolution is irresistible as the rising tide. A man may have the power to start it, but no man has the power to stay it.'
"'But my father!' she pleaded. 'Tell me! The revolutionists have no love for the police?'
"I was obliged to own, however regretfully, that they had not. For what have policemen ever done, that revolutionists should love them? ”

“ It is therefore with all the more inward conviction, with all the more urgent moral persuasion, that the author makes use of the rare opportunity offered him by residence in Switzerland to range himself boldly on the side of truth and show that there are still Germans who find it impossible to condone even tacitly the moral transgression and political stupidity of their own and an allied Government. ”

“ No doubt in many instances the privileges allowed to this merry despot were abused, and not unfrequently productive of immorality; the institution itself, even if we view it in its most favourable light, is puerile and ridiculous, adapted to the ages of ignorance, when more rational amusements were not known, or at least not fashionable. ”

“ They recognise no laws in politics other than those which man makes. That there are natural laws and economic facts, over which man has no control, is a matter which they have never taken into consideration. I refer to the rank and file of the tramp army. There are individual men [Pg 204] who do not subscribe to what I have given as the political philosophy of the majority of the tramps,—men, indeed, who laugh at the thought of a tramp having any political notions at all,—but they are exceptions. ”

“ At this crisis of the movement, its most dangerous stage, when the two great political parties were so nearly balanced that each was bidding high for the adhesion of the Anti-Corn-Law League, no man saw the peril of the temptation so clearly as Joseph Sturge. ”

“ The only punishment which ever crushes a cause is that which its leaders necessarily suffer in consequence of the new order of things made necessary to prevent the recurrence of their sin. It was not the blood of two peers and thirty commoners which England shed after the Rebellion of 1715, or that of five peers and twenty commoners shed after the rising of 1745, which crushed the House of Stuart. ”

“ Hence they hardly look upon the Government as an instrument at all under the control of people like themselves; they view it, rather, as a sort of benevolent tyranny, whose constitution is no concern of theirs. Commons or Lords, Liberals or Tories—what does it matter to the labourer which of them has the power, so long as one or other will cast an occasional look in his direction, and try to do something or other to help him? What they should do rests with the politicians: it is their part to suggest, the labourer's to acquiesce. ”

“ There was no reason why Mr Strummery should not call together a section of his followers if he wished, and discuss policy with them, but at the moment it was dangerous, because the conclave was just strong enough to be able to impose its will upon Parliament, and yet individually it was composed of weak men. It was dangerous because half a dozen weak men, rendered desperate by the situation into which they were being inevitably driven, had resolved to act upon heroic lines. ”

“ Charvát.—However, as a punishment for the spilling of blood and for incendiarism, I announce in the name of the district government: From each insurrectionist estate and land-holding, one mature man must be enrolled in the army. The plotters of the rebellion will, it is true, have their life, estate and liberty assured them, but as a fine and as a humiliation as well and a punishment for their crime they shall be publicly flogged here in the presence of their lords and of their people whom they stirred up to rebel. ”

“ Every day placards, written and printed, were found displayed in public places, calling on the Government that had no money to let in one that had. "You thought more of your position than of our needs when Hampden offered us help," ran one that Mr Strummery found nailed to his front door. "You have always thought more of your positions than of our needs. You have used our needs to raise yourselves to those positions. Now, since you no longer represent the wishes of the People, give way to others." ”

“ It is not anyone in any society, not anyone in any stage of social development who can arrogate to himself the title of 'struggler'. Therefore, if the title of 'struggler' has a moral value with a distinctive and crucial weight in the evaluation of human beings and the political movements and parties to which they belong, it has to be earned. ”

“ Stubber candidly confessed that he had not, and listened patiently while his master descanted critically on the different styles of art, and his own especial tact and skill in discriminating between them.
“You'll look after these police returns, then, Stubber,” said he, at last. “You'll let these people understand that we can suffice for the administration of our own duchy. We neither want advice from Metternich, nor battalions from Radetzky. The laws here are open to every man; and if we have any claim to the gratitude of our people, it rests on our character for justice.” ”

“ Of course it is not to be expected that he or any other man in his position should put much store by what such a constituency as the tramps thinks of him, but the tramp's exaggerated notions of his policy are symptomatic of the man's influence on people. ”

“ May each American citizen who is desirous of washing away this disgrace, to whatever division of the anti-slavery host he may attach himself, ever bear in mind that the cause is of too tremendous and pressing a nature to admit of his wasting his time in censuring and impeding the progress of those who may array themselves under a somewhat different standard from his own ”

“ As morals have an intimate connection with politics, I do not think it out of place here to record my conviction, that the great principle of popular control, which is carried out almost to its full extent in the free states, is not only beautiful in theory, but that it is found to work well in practice. It is true that disgraceful scenes of mob violence and lynch-law have occurred; but perhaps not more frequently than popular outbreaks in Great Britain ”

“ He heard the voice of heaven calling him up to the whole conflict, and he solemnly and vehemently remonstrated with the committee against the resolution which they had adopted declaring, that "as slavery was as much a crime against the Divine law, as the slave trade, it became the committee to exert themselves equally against the continuance of both; and he did not hesitate to pronounce all present, guilty before God, for shutting those, who were then slaves, out of the pale of their approaching labors." ”

“ Wally uttered a dull cry at the word "murderess," and drew back into the kitchen. "Hold," cried Stromminger. "Before a justice my daughter shall never go; do you think I'll live to see the chief peasant's child taken off to prison? Do you know Stromminger no better than that? Do I need a court of justice to punish a wilful girl? Stromminger himself is man enough for that, and on my own ground and my own territory I am my own judge and justice. I'll soon show you who Stromminger is, though I am lame. ”

“ To reduce the servant to his condition, requires abuses altogether monstrous—injuries reaching the very vitals of man—stabs upon the very heart of humanity. Now, what right has Professor Stuart to make the word "servants," comprehending, even as manual laborers, so many and such various meanings, signify "slaves," especially where different classes are concerned? Such a right he could never have derived from humanity, or philosophy, or hermeneutics. It is his by sympathy with the oppressor? ”

“ The court contained many such men, who were ambitious of becoming ministers of state or bishops and ready to take either side for gain; men who hated the Despensers, and who saw their own prospects blighted by the fall of Lancaster. Regularly, as the tide had turned, as the king or the Ordainers had gained or lost, the great offices of state had changed hands, and there was all the grudging, all the personal [Pg 284] animosities, which in later ages appear to be inseparable from government by party. ”

“ I forgot the passages from Turgot, of which I had made notes, and I broke out in a strain I had not foreseen or intended.
"Messieurs!" I cried, hurling my voice through the Chamber, "I dissent from this cahier because it is effete and futile; because, if for no other reason, the time when it could have been of service is past. You claim your privileges; they are gone! Your exemptions; they are gone! You protest against the union of your representatives with those of the people; but they have sat with them! ”

“ Short notices are introduced of some of the prominent abolitionists of America; and, though sensible how imperfectly I have done justice to exertions, which, either in degree or kind, have scarcely a parallel in the annals of self-denying benevolence, I fear I shall occasionally have hurt the feelings of the individuals referred to, by what they may deem undeserved or unseasonable praise; yet I trust they will pardon the act for the sake of the motive, which is to introduce the English anti-slavery reader to a better acquaintance with his fellow laborers in the United States. ”

“ And shall we stop our ears, and close our eyes, and fold our hands before the cause of reform, for the reason that there are some Grabs in the party? Nay, God forbid!”
Mark Sutherland paused as in painful thought some 104time, and then, with more than usual emotion, he exclaimed—
“I would to God there were no Achans in the camp! For this work, that at the best is apt to arouse so much evil passion—for this work, requiring so much wisdom and goodness to carry it on aright—for this work, more than for all others, should the labourers have clear heads, and clean hands, and pure motives.” ”

“ But whenever the general had to exercise any function of authority beyond the handling of troops on the march or in action, he distinguished himself by an impatience of restraint, a reckless disregard of the laws, an uncontrollable violence of temper, and a daring assumption of power, not seldom seriously compromising the character as well as the peace of the country. ”

“ The thirst for domination, which was native to the soul of Weishaupt, converted the order into a despotism against which men who had been taught by their leader that they shared with him the innermost secrets of the organization, rebelled. The result was the constant breaking-out of a spirit of insubordination and a series of quarrels between the founder and his associates which rendered the future progress of the order very precarious. [367] The extreme poverty of the organization constituted another serious obstacle to its rapid growth. ”

“ Audacious enough at bird's-nesting, sliding, tree-climbing, fighting, and impertinent enough towards people of their own kind, they quail before the first challenge of "superiority." All aplomb goes from them then. It is distressing to see how they look: with an expression of whimpering rebellion, as though the superior person had unhuman qualities, not to be reckoned on—as though there were danger in his presence. ”

“ But the religious question is only one of those which have disturbed the position of the Porte. The system of administration, as described in these pages, is enough to overturn any power, and an official class brought up under vicious home influences, educated in fanatical mosque-schools, living the self-indulgent indolent life of Stamboul, getting and keeping office by bribery, administering “justice” to the highest bidder, is a doomed class. ”

“ In addition to these intestine troubles, the pro-slavery party made strenuous exertions to fasten upon the society the responsibility of the opinions and proceedings of its non-resistant and no-government members. Under these circumstances it is easy to understand the interruption, for a season, of the unity of feeling and action which had previously characterized the assemblies of the abolitionists. ”

“ MASTER. Men cannot bear independence. They want you to obey them. Every one of my subordinates in the department, down to the very messengers, wanted me to obey him. And when I wouldn't they called me a despot. The servants in our house wanted me to obey them and eat food that had been warmed up. When I wouldn't, they set my wife against me. And finally my wife wanted me to obey the child, but then I left, and then all of them combined against the tyrant—which was I!—Get in there quick now, Louise, so we can set off our mines out here.
The CONSUL enters from the left. ”

“ A general confusion in the government must, of course, increase the extent of my power, and, therefore, it was our grand object to excite distrust in the K—g against his subjects, in the ministers against their subalterns, and in the counsellors against their own colleagues. No power could save the man who shewed me the least shadow of neglect or contempt. ”