Insurrection

“ The invisible police of the insurrection were on the watch everywhere, and maintained order, that is to say, night. The necessary tactics of insurrection are to drown small numbers in a vast obscurity, to multiply every combatant by the possibilities which that obscurity contains. ”

“ Let him see that we be no hang-dog murderers, but that the Great Uprising had its birth in Truth and Righteousness. It lies in our hands whether it go down to unborn generations as a God-given Uprising of the people against unjust tyrants, or a hellish insurrection of rapine and incendiarism and bloodshed. ”

“ Insurrection is the rising of people in arms against their government, or a portion of it, or against one or more of its laws, or against an officer or officers of the government. It may be confined to mere armed resistance, or it may have greater ends in view. ”

“ In the first excitement of fear and horror those cruelties were, no doubt, greatly exaggerated, but still enough remains proved to stamp the insurrection as one branding with the foulest disgrace the race which perpetrated and exulted in them. ”

“ It is the almost unanimous insurrection of a great nation against inveterate abuses. There are great factions which fan this flame. In all factions there are many scoundrels and many madmen. In the Revolution I see nothing but the king and the entire nation. ”

“ Still the demon of insurrection, imprisoned in every throbbing heart, waited until the scattered masses obtained a definite form, and then burst forth with all his long-repressed power; one mind in a many-limbed, gigantic body. ”

“ Let no one say I desire a slave insurrection; but, sir, I doubt not that hundreds of thousands of honest and patriotic hearts will laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh. No, sir; should a servile insurrection take place, should massacre and blood mark the footsteps of those who have for ages been oppressed—my prayer to God shall be that justice—stern, unalterable justice—may be awarded to the master and the slave!" ... "A war with England in the present state of the two nations must inevitably place in our possession the Canadas, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. ”

“ No one seemed even to appreciate adequately the ethics of insurrection—that an insurrectionary administration which has succeeded in establishing itself, becomes by that very fact (from the point of view of the insurrection) the sole rightful repository of power for the time being, and that the Government, against which the insurrection was directed, becomes in its turn the rebel power, to be crushed in the most expeditious manner possible. ”

“ Insurrection is a calculus with very indefinite magnitudes, the value of which may change every day; the forces opposed to you have all the advantage of organization, discipline, and habitual authority: unless you bring strong odds against them you are defeated and ruined. ”

“ There is something more than a mere ordinary, something more than even a murderous, riot in all this. It is an act of insurrection, we might, considering the peculiar class and condition of the guilty parties, almost call it a servile insurrection—if not also one of treason. Fifty, eighty, or a hundred persons, whether white or black, who are deliberately in arms for the purpose of resisting the law, even the law for the recovery of fugitive slaves, are in the attitude of levying war against the United States ”

“ An abstract and indefeasible right of insurrection may exist, maintainable in any and every case; and yet a particular instance of insurrection may be foolish, wicked, and altogether worthy of ruin and extinction. ”

“ They design to incite servile insurrection and light the fires of incendiarism wherever they can reach your homes, and they debauch the inferior race, hitherto docile and contented, by promising indulgence of the vilest passions as the price of treachery. ”

“ Giving due and deep attention to what he heard, the General expressed amazement that the rebels had so well concerted their plans, that, like a mine ready to explode, the insurrection had been kept buried in silence and secrecy until the favourable moment had arrived,—or, like hidden embers, smothered, yet gathering strength till ready, as appeared the rebellious spirit at present, to burst into open flame.
"Infatuated and deluded people!" ”

“ And when, in the calm moments of reflection, they shall have traced the origin and progress of the insurrection, let them determine whether it has not been fomented by combinations of men, who, careless of consequences, and disregarding the unerring truth that those who rouse can not always appease a civil convulsion, have disseminated, from an ignorance or perversion of facts, suspicions, jealousies, and accusations of the whole government. ”

“ The magnificent human movement irresistibly began on July 14. These soldiers are priests, and the French revolution is a gesture of God. Moreover, there are—and it is proper to add this distinction to the distinctions already indicated in another chapter,—there are accepted insurrections which are called revolutions; and there are rejected revolutions which are called riots. An insurrection which breaks out is an idea which passes its examination in the presence of the people. If the people drops its blackball, the idea is dry fruit, and the insurrection is a street-riot. ”

“ I consider this insurrection as the first formidable fruit of the Democratic societies, brought forth, I believe, too prematurely for their own views, which may contribute to the annihilation of them. ”

“ In the most general cases riot issues from a material fact, but insurrection is always a moral phenomenon. Riot is Masaniello; insurrection is Spartacus. ”

“ Insurrection, never so necessary, is a most sad necessity; and governors who wait for that to instruct them, are surely getting into the fatallest courses,—proving themselves Sons of Nox and Chaos, of blind Cowardice, not of seeing Valour! ”

“ High rises the response, not of cackling terror, but of crowing counter-defiance, and Vive la Nation; young Valour streaming towards the Frontiers; Patrie en Danger mutely beckoning on the Pont Neuf. Sections are busy, in their permanent Deep; and down, lower still, works unlimited Patriotism, seeking salvation in plot. Insurrection, you would say, becomes once more the sacredest of duties? ”

“ It has been more than once the lot of our Government to be thrown into new and delicate situations; and of these, the insurrection has not been the least important. Having been compelled at length to lay aside my repugnance to resort to arms, I derive much happiness from being confirmed by your judgment in the necessity of decisive measures, and from the support of my fellow-citizens of the militia, who were the patriotic instruments of that necessity. ”

“ Then came the Nat Turner Insurrection, when they killed all those women and children, and then rose the hell-fire-for-all, bitter-'n-gall Abolition people stirring gunpowder with a lighted stick, holding on like grim death and in perfect safety fifteen hundred miles from where the explosion was due! ”

“ No other cause had called forth this diffusive spirit of insurrection than the general consciousness, so fatally warranted, of the debility which had emasculated the government, and its incompetency to deal vigorously with the public enemies. ”

“ I have long formed the idea that an insurrection against grievances in this country must, to be successful, be spontaneous and not plotted, and that all political conspiracies may be local and even individual evils. ”

“ It continues to develop that the insurrection is largely, if not exclusively, a war upon the first principle of popular government—the rights of the people. Conclusive evidence of this is found in the most grave and maturely considered public documents, as well as in the general tone of the insurgents. ”

“ The Czar Nicholas, complaining, that "insurrection has spread in every nation with an audacity which has gained new force in proportion to the concessions of the Governments" declares that he considers it his divine mission to crush the Spirit of Liberty on earth, which he arrogantly terms the spirit of insurrection and of anarchy. ”

“ The government feared a popular insurrection from an excitement so sudden, and a persecution so dreadful, and therefore issued express prohibition to all the ecclesiastical authorities to prevent any allusion to the event from the pulpit. All classes were required to maintain absolute silence, and any controversy, or criticism, or remark was regarded as high treason. Such is despotism. Such is religious persecution, when fear, as well as hatred, prompts to injustice and cruelty. ”

“ An insurrection in one of thirteen States, in the course of eleven years that they have subsisted, amounts to one in any particular State, in one hundred and forty-three years, say a century and a half. This would not be near as many, as have happened in every other government that has ever existed. ”

“ It is quite evident that those who favor the idea of insurrection ignore completely the state of mind of our opponents. One must be blind not to perceive that such a movement would have no chance of success. ”

“ And what is more, it is for the most part the history of insurrection exactly against what the worldly spirits of the time, whenever it may have been, deemed mere trifles and accidents, with which sensible men should on no account dream of taking the trouble to quarrel. ”

“ We are dealing with an insurrection within our own country, of our own people, and the Government of Great Britain have thought fit to recognise that insurrection before we were able to bring the strength of the Union to bear against it, by conceding to it the status of belligerent. ”

“ When the situation was not ripe, when the insurrection was not decidedly admitted, when the masses disowned the movement, all was over with the combatants, the city was changed into a desert around the revolt, souls grew chilled, refuges were nailed up, and the street turned into a defile to help the army to take the barricade.
A people cannot be forced, through surprise, to walk more quickly than it chooses. Woe to whomsoever tries to force its hand! ”

“ It is used and given you (by the king's counsel) as an evidence of this, that he did conspire to raise an insurrection, and to cause a rising of the people, to make as it were a rebellion within the nation, and to surprise the king's guards, which, say they, can have no other end, but to seize and destroy the king; and 'tis a great evidence (if my lord Russell did design to seize the king's guards, and make an insurrection in the kingdom) of a design to surprise the king's person. ”

“ In times of insurrection, or invasion, it would be natural and proper, that the militia of a neighboring State should be marched into another, to resist a common enemy, or to guard the republic against the violence of faction or sedition. ”

“ We have been mutually pledged to each other, to look only to our own strength, and that the first introduction of a system of terror, the first attempt to execute an individual in one county, should be the signal of insurrection in all. ”

“ He urged upon us that an insurrection had been lately made by armed men, who pretended to be more religious than others; that that insurrection had been plotted and contrived in their meeting-house, where they assembled under colour of worshipping God; that in their meeting-house they hid their arms, and armed themselves, and out of their meeting-house issued forth in arms, and killed many ”

“ A petty disturbance in the beginning, fomented for private purposes and fostered by an appeal to patriotic feeling, has developed into a formidable insurrection. I say formidable, but I do not mean to give the idea that the insurrection is formidable from a military point of view. ... But from industrial, educational, and religious points of view, the rebellion has been a complete success, and however soon it may be suppressed, the progress of the country in some parts has been thrown back for years, a large tract reduced to desolation, and the inhabitants to little better than savages. ”

“ The term rebellion is applied to an insurrection of large extent, and is usually a war between the legitimate government of a country and portions of provinces of the same who seek to throw off their allegiance to it and set up a government of their own. ”

“ In fact, nearly every revolution is preceded by an insurrection, which is suppressed by violence, because it seeks to realise premature ideals, and on this account is frequently followed by a counter-revolution, provoked by reactionary elements. ”