Right of revolution

“ In other words, the right of revolution is in our Constitution exalted into the peaceful principle of amendment. Instead, therefore, of really being denied, the right of revolution is, indeed, enlarged and consecrated in our system of government, which rests upon that right. In vindicating and maintaining, therefore, that system, we vindicate and maintain with it the right of revolution. But we deny any such thing as a right of revolution for the sole sake of revolution; because it leads to anarchy. We deny the right of revolution for the sake of oppression ”

“ But it does mean that the right of revolution is ultimately reserved to the people themselves, whatever formal, but useless, remedies the existing government may offer. This is shown in the history of our own revolution. ”

“ The constitutions of 15 States have, at one time or another, made specific provision for the right of revolution by reserving to the people the right to 'alter, reform or abolish' the existing frame of government. ”

“ But as a practical right, existing under the Constitution, and in conformity with its provisions, it seems to me to be nothing but a plain absurdity; for it supposes resistance to government, under the authority of government itself; it supposes dismemberment, without violating the principles of union; it supposes opposition to law, without crime; it supposes the violation of oaths, without responsibility; it supposes the total overthrow of government, without revolution. ”

“ It is difficult, in studying the political principles on which individuals or masses of men acted, or on which they supposed themselves to be acting, during the period at which I have now arrived, to discriminate between the right of revolution and the right of secession, as distinct principles governing their personal conduct. ”

“ In a state with a poorly organized government and where the laws are insignificant, and the ruler has lost his dignity as the result of the accumulation of liberal rights, I find a new right, namely, the right of might to destroy all existing order and institutions, to lay hands on the law, to alter all institutions, and to become the ruler of those who have voluntarily, liberally renounced for our benefit the rights to their own power. ”

“ And how forcibly are we impressed, in surveying the varied phases of the French Revolution, that nothing but justice and right should guide men in their reforms; that robbery and injustice in the name of liberty and progress are still robbery and injustice, to be visited with righteous retribution; and that those rulers and legislators who cannot make passions and interests subservient to reason, are not fit for the work assigned to them. It is miserable hypocrisy and cant to talk of a revolutionary necessity for violating the first principles of human society. ”

“ The revolution found the rights of the individual at the mercy of the States; it rescued them from their arbitrary discretion, and placed them under the shield of National protection. It made the liberty and rights of every citizen in every State a matter of National concern. Out of a Republic of arbitrary local organizations it made a Republic of equal citizens—citizens exercising the right of self-government under and through the States, but as to their rights as citizens not subject to the arbitrary will of the States. ”

“ The older constitutions often add a clause which shows the roots of these provisions in the right of revolution. 'The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind,' the New Hampshire Const., Pt. ”

“ They are too well acquainted with the history of our origin and progress to suppose, for an instant, that we would, under any circumstances, surrender one jot or tittle of that liberty and right to self-government which we achieved in the sanguinary conflicts of revolution, or give up a single privilege secured to us by our laws and Constitution. ”

“ Experience has shown that theocratic aristocracy in its absolutist form is essentially coercive, and is prone to the use of force; hence the resistance offered by the democracy is fully justified. Revolution may be a right and necessary means of resistance, and is then ethically justified. It may even become a moral duty.
My contention is, that revolution may be the right instrument for the democracy to adopt. It may be. But some revolutions are reactionary, undemocratic, unprogressive. A revolution may be unnecessary. ”

“ In the same way as fires light up a whole city, revolutions light up the whole human race. And what a revolution shall we make? I have just told you, the revolution of the True. From the political point of view, there is but one principle, the sovereignty of man over himself. This sovereignty of me over me is called liberty, and where two or three of these liberties are associated the State begins. But in this association there is no abdication, and each sovereignty concedes a certain amount of itself to form the common right. ”

“ This Assembly has hardly a year's prescription. We have their own word for it that they have made a revolution. To make a revolution is a measure which, primâ fronte, requires an apology. To make a revolution is to subvert the ancient state of our country; and no common reasons are called for to justify so violent a proceeding. The sense of mankind authorizes us to examine into the mode of acquiring new power, and to criticize on the use that is made of it, with less awe and reverence than that which is usually conceded to a settled and recognized authority. ”

“ Revolutionaries say that the purpose of their activity is the freedom of people. But in order to serve the freedom, it is necessary to clearly define what is meant by the freedom.
Under freedom revolutionaries assume the same what governments, with which they are fighting, define this word, namely: guarded by law (and the law is set up by violence) the right of everyone to do what does not violate the freedom of others. ”

“ It is perfectly evident to any logical mind that when you have got the vote, by the proper use of the vote in sufficient numbers, by combination, you can get out of any legislature whatever you want, or, if you cannot get it, you can send them about their business and choose other people who will be more attentive to your demands, But, it is clear to the meanest intelligence that if you have not got the vote, you must either submit to laws just or unjust, administration just or unjust, or the time inevitably comes when you will revolt against that injustice and use violent means to put an end to it, That is so logically correct that we hear politicians today talk about the inherent right of revolution and rebellion on the part of human beings suffering from an intolerable injustice, and in England today we are having a situation brought about by men which exactly illustrates the case. We have got in Ireland today a very serious situation. ”

“ In the second place, government should be based upon the consent of the governed....
In the third place, the people have a duty as well as a right to carry on revolution as the last resort in stopping tyranny.... Revolution is regarded as a natural blessing; it guards against tyranny and promotes the vitality of the people. ”

“ What do you think an eminent man said, in the British Parliament, about the outbreak of our Revolution, and the condition of things then existing in America? "Whenever oppression begins, resistance becomes lawful and right." ”

“ If, then, we are to believe the skilful, revolutions like the Revolution of July are severed arteries; a prompt ligature is indispensable. The right, too grandly proclaimed, is shaken. Also, right once firmly fixed, the state must be strengthened. Liberty once assured, attention must be directed to power. ”

“ We are not called upon by any circumstance, that I know of, which can justify a revolt, or which demands a revolution, or can make an election of a successor to the crown necessary, whatever latent right may be supposed to exist for effectuating any of these purposes. ”

“ If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution—certainly would if such a right were a vital one. But such is not our case. ”

“ All revolutions create alongside of the regularly constituted government their own unconstitutional, extra-legal revolutionary authority that unites the revolutionists, mobilizes their forces for resistance to the legal authority and forms the germ of the future government if the revolution succeeds. ”

“ Before the revolution, all captures from the enemy accrued to the government, to be distributed according to law; and the revolution could not strip the government of this exclusive prerogative, and vest it in individuals. ”

“ Our Republican robe is soiled and trailed in the dust. Let us purify it. Let us turn and wash it white in the spirit if not the blood of the Revolution. Let us turn slavery from its claims of moral right, back upon its existing legal rights and its arguments of necessity. Let us return it to the position our fathers gave it, and there let it rest in peace. Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it the practices and policy which harmonize with it. Let North and South, let all Americans, let all lovers of liberty everywhere, join in the great and good work. ”

“ Its first ethical precept is the identity of means used and aims sought. The ultimate end of all revolutionary social change is to establish the sanctity of human life, the dignity of man, the right of every human being to liberty and well-being. Unless this be the essential aim of revolution, violent social changes would have no justification. For external social alterations can be, and have been, accomplished by the normal processes of evolution. Revolution, on the contrary, signifies not mere external change, but internal, basic, fundamental change. ”

“ One of the first motives to civil society, and which becomes one of its fundamental rules, is, that no man should be judge in his own cause. By this each person has at once divested himself of the first fundamental right of uncovenanted man, that is, to judge for himself, and to assert his own cause. He abdicates all right to be his own governor. He inclusively, in a great measure, abandons the right of self-defence, the first law of Nature. Men cannot enjoy the rights of an uncivil and of a civil state together. ”

“ The Anarchists are right in everything; in the negation of the existing order, and in the assertion that, without authority, there could not be worse violence than that of authority under existing conditions. They are mistaken only in thinking that Anarchy can be instituted by a revolution. "To establish Anarchy." "Anarchy will be instituted." But it will be instituted only by there being more and more people who do not require protection from governmental power, and by there being more and more people who will be ashamed of applying this power. ”

“ What is the end of our revolution? The tranquil enjoyment of liberty and equality; the reign of that eternal justice, the laws of which are graven, not on marble or stone, but in the hearts of men, even in the heart of the slave who has forgotten them, and in that of the tyrant who disowns them. ”

“ It is an acknowledged fact, that every revolution requires a provisional power to regulate its disorganizing movements, and to direct the methodical demolition of every part of the ancient social constitution.— Such ought to be the revolutionary power. ”

“ Whenever you are about to be oppressed, you have a right to resist oppression: whenever you conceive yourself to be oppressed, conceive yourself to have a right to make resistance, and act accordingly. In proportion as a law of any kind any act of power, supreme or subordinate, legislative, administrative, or judicial, is unpleasant to a man, especially if, in consideration of such its unpleasantness, his opinion is, that such act of power ought not to have been exercised, he of course looks upon it as oppression: ”

“ Far am I from denying in theory, full as far is my heart from withholding in practice, (if I were of power to give or to withhold,) the real rights of men. In denying their false claims of right, I do not mean to injure those which are real, and are such as their pretended rights would totally destroy. If civil society be made for the advantage of man, all the advantages for which it is made become his right. It is an institution of beneficence; and law itself is only beneficence acting by a rule. Men have a right to live by that rule; ”

“ because it would be a solecism to contend that any part of a nation might dissolve its connection with the other parts, to their injury or ruin, without committing any offense. Secession, like any other revolutionary act, may be morally justified by the extremity of oppression; but to call it a constitutional right, is confounding the meaning of terms, and can only be done through gross error, or to deceive those who are willing to assert a right, but would pause before they made a revolution, or incur the penalties consequent upon a failure. ”

“ This morning the newspapers have published a new law just passed by the Government to oppose all attempts at a counter-revolution. It empowers the Government to put ‘out of harm’s way’ any one who is, in their opinion, dangerous to the achievements of the revolution or to the popular republic. ”

“ The only thing that is legitimate, now, and holy, and sacred, is the Revolution. By this article, the government was declared revolutionary; power put under the feet of the people; authority subordinated, not to its own principles, but to the judgment of opinion. ”