Nonresistance

“ And so perfectly befooled are the children of this world, with faith in injury as their chief ultimate security, that scarcely one in it thousand will at first thought allow the non-resistance doctrine to be anything better than a proclamation of cowardice on one side, and universal anarchy, lawlessness and violence on the other. As if all mankind were so entirely controlled by the dread of deadly, or at least, tremendous personal injury, that if this were relinquished a man's throat would be instantly cut, his family assassinated, or some other horrible mischief inflicted. ”

“ But if human government be understood to imply only divine government clothed in human form, and administered by human organizations, with merely incidental human imperfections, non-resistance is for it per se. ”

“ Regarding this world as destined to be soon burnt up, it despaired of improving the foundations of society, and laid down the principle of Non-resistance, even to Injurious force, in terms so unlimited, as practically to throw its entire weight into the scale of tyranny. ”

“ Injurious force not essential to government I shall now be told by the opposer, that I am a Utopian, a dreamer, a chimerist, to imagine any such thing as a government without a war-power in the last resort - without the power of deadly compulsion to suppress individual crime and mobocratic violence. That such a government would be a body without a soul - a house without a foundation - a powerless non-resistant abstraction; a something which can never have existence on earth, at least so long as human imperfection remains. ”

“ As non-resistance is not identical with absolute passivity, but allows, implies and requires various kinds and degrees of moral and physical "strength," according to circumstances, the term force must not be used as its converse; unless it be with such qualifications, or in such a connection, as will give it some one of its conventional significations, so that it shall mean violence, warlike force, positive vengeance, destructive force - in fine, INJURIOUS FORCE. Injurious force of all kinds and degrees, between human beings, is incompatible with non-resistance. ”

“ Under what circumstances the country might have a non-resistant government Let us have two-thirds of the people of the United States, (including that portion who are, or would be thought Christians, philanthropists, people of intelligence and orderly citizens) once firmly committed to non-resistance, as explained and illustrated in this work, with even a large share of imperfection still lingering about them, and the government might triumphantly dispense with its army, navy, militia, capital punishment, and all manner of injurious inflictions. ”

“ Is non-resistance, as defined and expounded in this work, for or against human government per se?
This depends on what sense is given to the adjective human when joined to the noun government. If human government be understood to imply or presuppose an inherent, original, ABSOLUTE power in man to make laws and exercise discretionary control over man, non-resistance is against it. It denies any such inherent, original, absolute power in man, and refers it to God only. In this sense all rightful government is essentially divine; man being ever a subject - not a governor. ”

“ Will you stick to your principle of non-resistance when your strong-box is broken open, when your wife and babes are insulted and slaughtered in your sight? If you say yes, you only invite the robber and assassin ”

“ There cannot, as I think, be conceived a more flagrant violation of public law, or national independence, than is contained in this short declaration.
No matter what be the character of the government resisted; no matter with what weight the foot of the oppressor bears on the neck of the oppressed; if he struggle, or if he complain, he sets a dangerous example of resistance,—and from that moment he becomes an object of hostility to the most powerful potentates of the earth. ”

“ We well know how difficult it is to excite the resistance of a whole people, and what a calamitous contingency, at best, this is to be reduced to. But it is a sufficient answer, that nothing can be powerful enough to effect such a purpose in a government like ours, but universal oppression. ”

“ Human government in this sense would be an organization of society constitutionally deferential to the highest known law of God. It would disclaim and denounce all assumption of power to set up and enforce any law, regulation, or usage in violation of the natural equality and brotherhood of mankind. It would inscribe on its main pillars, No resistance of injury with injury - no rendering of evil for evil - evil can be overcome only with good! ”

“ I finally asked him whether he did not think that resistance to such oppression was justifiable.
"That depends," he replied, "upon what you mean by resistance; if you mean persuasion, argument, protest, I answer yes; if you mean violence - no. I do not believe that violent resistance to evil is ever justifiable under any circumstances." ”

“ These are the obligations following upon the challenge of democracy we have proclaimed to the nations.
VIII THE GOSPEL AND THE SUPERSTITION OF NON-RESISTANCE The first condition of fulfilling the responsibilities imposed upon us by the challenge of our democracy is, now and hereafter, readiness and willingness for self-respecting self-defense, defense of our liberties and of the principles and ideals for which we stand. There is much nonsense talked about non-resistance to evil. It is a lovely thing in certain high places of the moral life. ”

“ It is equally plain that nature necessitates aggression as certainly as it does injurious resistance to aggression; that in fact it necessitates neither; and that non-resistance, as I have defined it, is no more contrary to nature than non-aggression. Both aggressive and resistant injury can be unlearned, abandoned, and forever eschewed, without annihilating or perverting any essential constituent, element, property, quality or capability of human beings. More than this, men brought up to that moral excellency will be more thoroughly and perfectly men than in any inferior state. ”

“ After all the years of fruitless violence, it was the method of passive non-obedience which secured the momentary victory, afterwards lost through disunion and a return to violence. And in all the dealings of democratic governments with labor troubles or with irreconcilable minorities, it is this same power of passive resistance that comes into play. In a civilized, highly organized, highly political state, government is impossible without the consent of the governed. ”

“ It eschews all war, all violence, all injury, all social discord, all combating of wrong with wrong, evil with evil, and lays the only ample foundation, deep on the rock of principle, for the pacification and harmony of the world. If men would only restrain themselves from mutual injury, how soon would they be able to ascertain all important truths, and to correct all essential errors of theory and practice. ”

“ And while that was not logical on their part, thus to oppose the legal executors of the majority's will, it was a fine, successful piece of direct action.
Those who, by the essence of their belief, are committed to Direct Action only are—just who? Why, the non-resistants; precisely those who do not believe in violence at all! Now do not make the mistake of inferring that I say direct action means non-resistance; not by any means. Direct action may be the extreme of violence, or it may be as peaceful as the waters of the Brook of Siloa that go softly. ”

“ This is why the negation of the teaching of non-resistance and the failure to comprehend it are always in proportion to the degree of power, wealth, and sophistication of people.
People who occupy important positions of power, those who are very rich, used to their position, and who, like the majority of scholars, justify it, simply shrug their shoulders in response to any mention of non-resistance. ”

“ But, when government requires that which God does not forbid the subject to do, although in that the government may have transcended the line of its righteous rule, the subject must, nevertheless, submit,--until oppression has gone to the point at which God makes RESISTANCE to be duty. And that point is when RESISTANCE will clearly be less of evil, and more of good, TO THE COMMUNITY, than further submission. ”

“ But the general questions which the good citizen should ask himself in contemplating such resistance will be, __ (a) __ What prospect is there of resistance to the sovereign power leading to a modification of its character or an improvement in its exercise without its subversion? (b) If it is overthrown, is the temper of the people such, are the influences on which the general maintenance of social order and the fabric of recognised rights depend so far separable from it, that its overthrow will not mean anarchy? ”

“ For them, non-resistance becomes an end in itself, rather than a means for achieving other purposes. They are less concerned with reforming society than they are with maintaining the integrity of their own lives in this respect. If they have a social influence at all, it is only because by exhortation or, more especially by the force of example, they induce others to accept the same way of life. However, in their refusal to participate directly in such evil as war, even non-resistants do actually resist evil. ”

“ From the necessity of repressing springs the necessity of a constituted repressive force.
Rigorously, this force is in us; for if I am unjustly attacked, I have the right to defend myself. But, in the first place, I may not be the strongest; in the second place, no one is an impartial judge in his own cause, and what I regard or give out as an act of legitimate defence may be an act of violence and oppression. ”

“ The idea of non-resistance never occurred to a man with power to defend himself. The mother of this doctrine was weakness. To allow a crime to be committed, even against yourself, when you can prevent it, is next to committing the crime yourself. The church has preached the doctrine of non-resistance, and under that banner has shed the blood of millions. In the folds of her sacred vestments have gleamed for centuries the daggers of assassination. With her cunning hands she wove the purple for hypocrisy and placed the crown upon the brow of crime. ”

“ On one side is the standard of Government, the States and Law, which denounces the rebel, and especially the Nationalist rebel, as the worst of sinners; on the other side we have the standard of the individual, the soul and liberty, which loves a rebel, especially a Nationalist rebel, and denies that he is a sinner at all. ”

“ These familiar workings of this law of nature ought to open the most unwilling eyes to the fact that non-resistance, instead of being contrary to nature, is in strict accordance with it. And if it is confessedly the object of good men to do away with violence, cruelty, murder, and all the great crimes which blast the happiness of humanity, they ought to know that it never can be done by rendering evil for evil - injury for injury. ”

“ The way in which for us it may change and transform force, the existing order of things, and become, in its turn, the legitimate ruler of the world, should depend on the way in which, when our time comes, we see it and will it. Therefore for other people enamored of their own newly discerned right, to attempt to impose it upon us as ours, and violently to substitute their right for our force, is an act of tyranny, and to be resisted. ”

“ Thus it was that he became an implacable enemy to the liberty of those about him, warring with them if they asserted any independence, tyrannizing if they submitted. Such people create resistance, as it were out of a vacuum—even a wild and desperate resistance, which takes little heed of what it may hurt or overthrow in its struggle against domination. ”

“ Its resistance must never be public and open violence, nor, either directly or indirectly, by means of what we may call machinations, for such a proceeding would undermine the sacred foundations of public confidence, and shake the whole edifice of moral order and society. ”

“ Such a government would verify the prophetic prediction: I will also make thy officers peace, and thine exactors righteousness. Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders. Such a government there will yet be throughout the earth. ”

“ They are only to a limited extent enforced by social sanctions. There is personal liberty in regard to them. Resistance depends on independent judgment and self-control, and produces independence and self-control ”

“ With their strange optimism, and their almost appalling logical courage, they offer a tribute to Christianity which no orthodoxies could offer. It can not but be remarkable to watch a revolution in which both the rulers and the rebels march under the same symbol. But the actual theory of non-resistance itself, with all its kindred theories, is not, I think, characterised by that intellectual obviousness and necessity which its supporters claim for it. ”

“ If a man strike me violently, and I return the blow with equal or greater violence, will not my blow call for a third, and so on, till the weaker party cries "hold"? This is the law of nature. Does the opponent plead that the aggressor, being severely repelled, and knowing himself in the wrong, will retreat and learn to be civil? This will depend on which of the parties can strike the hardest, and injure the worst. If the aggressor be the stronger party, he will only fight the harder, till his antagonist is subdued. ”

“ The justification of non-resistance is more easily seen in the case of quarrels between individuals. If I encountered the traditional highwayman, and he demanded my money or my life, I should unhesitatingly give him my money, even if it were in my power to shoot him before he shot me. I should do this, not from cowardice or lack of spirit, but because I would rather part with money than have a man's blood on my conscience. ”