Unrest

“ At once unrest and even riots are started. Strikes become the order of the day, and there is a general unrest. Creation of public sentiment, legislation, and what not are tried but without the desired results. Everything is tried except the right thing. ”

“ under feigned jest
Are things conceal'd that else would breed unrest. ”

“ So long as discontent and unrest make themselves but dumbly felt within a limited social class, the powers of reaction may often succeed in suppressing such manifestations. But when the dumb unrest grows into conscious expression and becomes almost universal, it necessarily affects all phases of human thought and action, and seeks its individual and social expression in the gradual transvaluation of existing values. ”

“ There must be some real ground4 for the universal unrest and perturbation. It is not to be found in superficial politics or in mere economic blunders. It probably lies deep at the sources of the spiritual life of our time. ”

“ They believed their words. Everybody shows a respectful deference to certain sounds that he and his fellows can make. But about feelings people really know nothing. We talk with indignation or enthusiasm; we talk about oppression, cruelty, crime, devotion, self-sacrifice, virtue, and we know nothing real beyond the words. Nobody knows what suffering or sacrifice mean—except, perhaps the victims of the mysterious purpose of these illusions. ”

“ And thus agitation at this time was calmness, perfect halcyon peace, in comparison with the confusion, the chaos, the tremendous storm of indignation, opposition, and persecution, that afterwards arose and hurtled around him. There are no wars so bloody as civil wars; there are no feuds so deadly as family feuds; there are no enemies so bitter, so cruel, so unrelenting, as those of our own blood, when they are enemies! Others may spare, but they will never spare! Others may in time become sated with vengeance, but they never! ”

“ So revolt followed cruelty and oppression. Great excesses were committed by both parties, and most horrible barbarities were exhibited. The atrocious nature of civil war is ever the same, and presents nearly the same undeviating picture of misery and crime. ”

“ Still lighted by their battle-fires,
'Gainst kingly power and kingly crime,
Long struggled in the darkened time?
How in a rolling sea they stood,
Where every wave was freemen's blood,—
Shall we forget the time of strife,
When freedom's only price was life? ”

“ We passed along through all the horrid varieties of misery, guilt, and riot that could find their place in a great public calamity; groups gazing in wo on the wreck of their fortunes in vapor and fire; groups plundering in the midst of the flame; crowds of rioters, escaped felons, and murderers, exulting in the public ruin, and dancing and drinking with Bacchanalian uproar; gangs of robbers stabbing the fugitives, to strip them; revenge, avarice, despair, profligacy, let loose naked; undisguised demons, to swell the wretchedness of this tremendous infliction upon a blood-covered empire. ”

“ Out they strode with steady swinging step, and the heart of the great city seemed to leap to its throat, the spray of the eastward billows to its blinking eyes, for riot, insurrection, defiance to law and order, peace and security, had again burst forth, and were raging every instant nearer and nearer its very vitals. ”

“ Then the people, as if inspired and guided by some soul-inspiring force outside their enslaved bodies, had risen in rebellion all over the world, thrown off their shackles, and annihilated their masters. ”

“ When there crept into the world the first dull, unreasoning sense of injury,—when the underlings of humanity first began to assimilate from the common vein of intelligence that made them one with the body, a sensible desire for recognition on the ground of equality, they were promptly denied any part whatsoever in the material and spiritual accretions of generations of labor; and then was inaugurated the revolt that has been prolific through all past time, of war and misery, of violence, pillage and murder. ”

“ Hence spring, jealousies, envies, hatreds; the most iniquitous plots to overthrow all power and mad schemes of universal ruin are formed. There is no peace abroad, nor security at home, and social life is made hideous by crime. ”

“ The conflict within threatens to engulf the society in self-war, group against group. The vital traditions may be lost—not merely altered or reformed, but completely destroyed in this period of chaos and anarchy. ”

“ Anarchy mounted its desolating car—mad ambition rolled its mountain waves over reason and justice—malicious jealousy sought its victims in every avenue—Jacobinism reared its hydra head—the fountain of mercy was dried up—the bloody guillotine did its fearful work. Civil war raged in all the plenipotence of exterminating revenge—cruelty ceased only for the want of victims—the streets were deluged with purple current. ”

“ But if you believe that these evils are likely to be redressed by such measures as have been pointed out to you this evening, or that anarchy and rebellion can lead to any other result than misery and ruin—ar—I tell you, that you are fearfully mistaken! Ar—as a man, possessed of—ar—no inconsiderable influence—and ar—intimately connected with those powers against which you are madly arraying yourselves, I warn you! ”

“ Tyranny, conquest, militarism, lawlessness, mobmindedness, riot, persecution, oppression, rebellion—these are the words that describe the long-continued panorama of unsuccessful efforts and experimental failures in government for approximately seven thousand years. ”

“ The study of the political strike leads us to a better understanding of a distinction we must always have in mind when we reflect on contemporary social questions. Sometimes the terms force and violence are used in speaking of acts of authority, sometimes in speaking of acts of revolt. ”

“ Based upon the boiling anger of those who put this ball in motion—reason is dethroned—reflection paralyzed—justice unheeded—mercy banished—the laws disregarded—power defied. It is the volcano of human society—the earthquake of social order—the whirlpool of brutality—the vortex of destruction. ”

“ The tents of life and joy are down. The generals practise their generalship, boasting of the blood they shed, competing one with the next in inciting to violence. ‘With this sword,’ saith one of them, ‘I beheaded a people!’ And another: ‘I toppled a nation to the ground!’ And yet another: ‘I brought a government down!’ On such things do men pride themselves, in such do they glory! ”

“ Cities and crowds, poverty, illness, pain and all the various terror of Civilization, robbed of the power to afflict, yet still hung hovering about the surface of his consciousness, though powerless to break his peace. ”

“ The common people will welter in bloody chaos, while the parties of traditional order will fly to bloody reaction. Class wars, racial wars, wars between the nations of yesterday, wars between the nations which have just been formed, blind social convulsions, with no further aim than the gratification of the hatreds, the envies, the crazy dreams of an hour of life looking forward to no morrow.... ”

“ But all seem to forget to restore order, for chaos is not man’s prerogative, and that in every history we read how such convulsion inevitably threw mankind back almost into elemental barbarism, glad even of the refuge of a tyranny against the more cruel dominion of their own passions. ”

“ For when men, by entering into society and civil government, have excluded force, and introduced laws for the preservation of property, peace, and unity, among themselves; those who set up force again, in opposition to the laws, do rebellare, that is, do bring back again the state of war, and are properly, rebels,’ as the author shows. ”

“ That we will, on every occasion, exert ourselves, on the first appearance of Tumult, or Disorder, to maintain the public peace, and to act in support of the civil authority, for suppressing all Riots, and for bringing the promoters of them to legal punishment. ”

“ And if we are called to contend with principalities and powers, and spiritual wickedness in high places, for the safety of our souls, surely we may contend with flesh and blood, with rebels and traitors, to save this glorious inheritance from the gulf of anarchy and the bonds of a lasting servitude. War is terrible, but slavery and plunder and the silent gangrene of national dishonor, bribery and perverted conscience are worse. ”

“ I am with poor against rich, labour against employer, women against men; I fight beside all strikers, mutineers, and rebels.
I welcome foes; I desire criticism.
I loathe prejudice, either social or national; I repudiate all claims.
I demand freedom of action and leisure for reflection.
Facing Death, I would say: 'I have tasted all, tried all, dared all, suffered all, and I repent nothing.'
[2] Song of Revolt
Crowns are ashake,
The princes and the Kings are bending low,
And, round the world,
Before the blast of Freedom, thrones are hurled:
The People are awake! ”

“ So that, marvelous to relate, though they can not bear to think of the evils accompanying the struggle for existence as it is carried on without violence among individuals in their own society, they can not only tolerate but can applaud such evils in their intense and wholesale forms when inflicted by fire and sword on entire communities. ”

“ The struggle, which, when some great principle of politics or morals is the subject of the strife, ennobles in our eyes the unflinching combatants, only degrades when the violence and the rancour result from the soreness of wounded vanity, or the malice of blighted anticipation. ”

“ It is plain, that were all things in perpetual tumult and confusion,—disturbance and contention on all sides—deeds of violence and wrong committed in open day, and no power to check them,—robbers breaking into houses, and murderers running through the streets with naked swords in their hands,—in such a state of things, what could the peaceable and well-disposed do? ”

“ Sir, can it be said that the rebellion has gone entirely unpunished?
You may object that the loyal people, too, were subjected to terrible sufferings; that their sons, too, were slaughtered by tens of thousands; that the mourning of countless widows and orphans is still darkening our land; that we are groaning under terrible burdens which the rebellion has loaded upon us, and that therefore part of the punishment has fallen upon the innocent. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If the fear of death was to seize the whole crowd of those who, in their cowardice at every strike, every demonstration, every fight at the barricades, had hidden behind the stove or crept under the bed ! ”

“ In both lie dangers, difficulties, and troubles, which no human foresight can foreshadow or perceive; but they are not equal in magnitude. One is beset with humiliation, dishonor, emeutes, rebellion,—with submission in the beginning to all, and at all times, and confiscation and slavery in the end. ”

“ During the long hours of this struggle, a struggle without a truce, a struggle against the army during the day and against the police during the night,—an unequal struggle, where all the strength and all the rage was on one side, and, as we have just said, nothing but Right on the other, not one of these hundred and twenty Representatives, not a single one failed at the call of duty, not one shunned the danger, not one drew back, not one wearied,—all these heads placed themselves resolutely under the axe, and for four days waited for it to fall. ”

“ Three poor beings, almost newborn, unconscious, deserted, orphaned, alone, lisping, smiling, were seen face to face with civil war, retaliation, the frightful logic of reprisals, murder, carnage, fratricide, rage, malice, all the Gorgons, and yet triumphant. ”

“ Mutiny. Insurrection against constituted authority, particularly military authority; open and violent resistance to the authority of officers; concerted revolt against the rules of discipline; hence, generally, forcible resistance to rightful authority on the part of subordinates. Violent commotion; tumult; uproar; strife.
Mutiny. To rise against lawful authority in the military service; to excite, or to be guilty of mutiny, or mutinous conduct; to revolt against one’s superior officer or rightful authority. ”

“ Their rage, knowing no abatement, pursued you abroad, and drove you from one territory to another. Recall the cruel indignities which you suffered; how you were dragged from the tribunal and the altars; how no place, however sacred, could shelter you against their violence. Others, torn from their wives, their children, their parents, after putting an end to their miserable lives, were deprived of funeral rites; for these tyrants imagined their government so firmly established that even the vengeance of the gods was unable to shake it. ”

“ They can see intestine discords, our government disorganized, our wrongs aggravated, multiplied, and un-redressed, peace with dishonor, or war without justice, union, or resources, in 'the calm lights of mild philosophy.' ... ”

“ Within those singular associations, thrown together by unreasoning accident, which we call States,—after they have subsisted for a time in peace, when the resistance excited by yet new oppression has been lulled to sleep, and the fermentation of contending forces appeased,—abuse, by its continuance, and by general sufferance, assumes a sort of established form ”

“ Three paths were opened to the slaves: to submit, to fight or to run away. Most of them submitted, as do most people everywhere, to force and fate. To fight singly meant death and to fight together meant plot and insurrection—a difficult thing, but one often tried. ”

“ The laying unreasonable burdens and restraints upon a people, will, if they are submitted to, debase their minds, break their spirits, enervate their courage, and sink them into cowards: if they are not submitted to, the consequence will be internal tumult, disorder, strife and contempt of government ”

“ No, what may be an innocent amusement in times of peace and happiness, and serve as an exalting, edifying, pious institution, often becomes a banner for the human mind if once wild rebellion has swayed, it followed exultingly by all the horrors of hell. ”