Untouchability

“ Against legitimacy is arrayed usurpation: against modest, single-minded, righteous, and brave resistance to encroachment, is arrayed boastful, double-tongued, selfish, and treacherous ambition to possess. ”

“ I see all the captious jealousy of conscious usurpation dreaded, detested, and obeyed—the giddiness and intoxication of splendid but unmerited success—the arrogance, the presumption, the self-will of unlimited and idolized power, and—more dreadful than all in the plenitude of authority—the restless and incessant activity of guilty but unsated ambition. ”

“ II. THE TWO CABS AND THE OVEN. IT falls, I think, to few people to suffer so huge a revolution in life as I had experienced. Here was I—partly, no doubt, as you will justly urge, by my own precipitate acts—an outlaw, a pariah from society, a fugitive from justice. ”

“ Impunity and remissness, for certain, are the bane of a commonwealth; but here the great art lies, to discern in what the law is to bid restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion only is to work. ”

“ To have a will, a conscience, or an aversion to their enslavement, and to express it in word or deed, instantly subjects them to the lash or the gallows. The will of the tyrant is their only legalized and baptized rule of life. ”

“ Suffer us to go back whence we came; suffer us to be freed at last from these fetters that are fastened to us and weigh us down. 15Here are despoilers and thieves, and courts of law, and those who are called tyrants; they think that they have some power over us because of the paltry body and its possessions. Suffer us to show them that they have power over no one. ”

“ Try the simple experiment, as a government official, of giving up lying, and refusing to take a part in executions and acts of violence; as a priest, of giving up deception; as a soldier, of giving up murder; as landowner or manufacturer, of giving up defending your property by fraud and force; and, you will at once lose the position which you pretend is forced upon you, and which seems burdensome to you.
A man cannot be placed against his will in a situation opposed to his conscience. ”

“ There are others on whom a charge has been laid from their childhood, a charge perhaps'—and her voice faltered at last—'impressed on them by dying lips, which must govern, possess their lives; which it would be baseness, treason, to betray. ”

“ To what crime, to what folly has not that plea of necessity pandered at one time or another in this world? From the statesman to the pick-purse, from the warrior to the cut-throat, all, all shield themselves behind necessity from the arrows which conscience vainly aims at the rebellious heart of man. ”

“ When you charge the neglect of any duty as a crime, or account its fulfilment a virtue, you suppose the existence of a power to neglect or fulfil; and it is the exercise of this power, in the one way or the other, which constitutes the merit or demerit. ”

“ The framers of the constitution too well understood the nature of human frailty, the influence of prepossession or vanity to believe that, by such a proceeding, either wisdom or impartiality, or the safety of private right would be promoted. ”

“ See how, confounding the weakness and the folly of the human heart with direct and actual criminality, you have suffered the probable or the possible to usurp the place of the inevitably true; have been so carried away by prejudice or by passion as to sentence an innocent man!—see, I say, that your judgments are fallible and your tests are weak ”

“ Such are the inconsistencies of human nature; such the blindness of those who pluck not the beam out of their own eyes, whilst they can espy a moat, in the eyes of their brother; such that partial system of morality which confines rights and injuries, to particular complexions ”

“ That part of the moral constitution, which exists in some degree in us all, which leads us to feel pain at the sight of injustice, and to desire retribution for cruelty and crime, seemed in him to have become an absorbing sentiment, as if he had been chosen by some higher power as the instrument of doom. ”

“ Can I leave them to vice, to suffering, to crime, and yet be innocent? Will not their souls be required at my hands, now that God shows me their condition? I feel the pressure of a responsibility scarcely thought of an hour ago. ”

“ Whether you examine the conduct of the nation at large, or that of its chiefs and leaders, your feelings revolt at the one, and your integrity despises the other. You see the idols erected by Folly, degraded by Caprice;—the authority obtained by Intrigue, bartered by Profligacy;—and the perfidy and corruption of one side so balanced by the barbarity and levity of the other, that the mind, unable to decide on the preference of contending vices, is obliged to find repose, though with regret and disgust, in acknowledging the general depravity. ”

“ Do you think, my Lord, that Greatness gives a Sanction to Wickedness? Or that it is the Prerogative of Lords to be unjust and inhumane? You remember the Sentence which yourself pronounc'd upon this innocent Man; you cannot think it hard that it should pass on you who are guilty. ”

“ A small variation of trifling circumstances, a slight change of form by an artificial dress, or a casual difference of appearance, by a new light and situation, will conciliate affection or excite abhorrence, and determine us to pursue or to avoid. Every man considers a necessity of compliance with any will but his own, as the lowest state of ignominy and meanness; few are so far lost in cowardice or negligence, as not to rouse at the first insult of tyranny, and exert all their force against him who usurps their property, or invades any privilege of speech or action. ”

“ It would, I say, carry me too far, were I to prove, that how odious soever is the empire of force over the opinions of mankind, from whom it only obtains dissimulation followed by contempt; and although it may seem contrary to the spirit of humanity and brotherly love, commanded us by reason, and authority, which we more respect, it is nevertheless necessary and indispensible. ”

“ The idea that they have the incidental power to issue an unlimited amount of obligations of such a character as to be irretrievably binding on the people, without a shadow of consideration in return, is the growth of a modern misconception of their true object and character. ”

“ The Will whose Province it is to obey and execute the Dictates of Reason, is continually rebelling against and usurping Authority over it; it not only stops us in the Pursuit of Truth, makes us wink hard and shut our Eyes against the Light, but even where it cannot thus hoodwink our Understanding, it frequently exerts its Tyranny the more, and makes us act in Contradiction to it. ”

“ He would declare that you were trampling on the fallen if you told him that wrong could be entitled to no privilege, no protection whatever—to no protection, till it was admitted by itself, admitted by all, to be wrong. ”

“ And that being so, he can be left, unrecompensed and unrewarded, to face a very considerable amount of discomfort, adversity, and even injustice, without becoming either a rebel or a criminal. Although if governed unintelligently enough, or wickedly enough, he may be turned into both. ”

“ Rectitude, hitherto upheld by laws, by custom, and by fear, now walks alone, in unaccustomed paths, and like a tottering infant, falls at the first assault, or first obstacle it meets; but falls to rise no more. Let any one who has mixed much with mankind, say what would be the consequence if restraint were withdrawn, and impunity offered to all those whose probity is not fixed on the basis of real piety, or supported by singular fortitude, and that sound sense which, discerning remote consequences, preserves integrity as armour of proof against the worst that can happen. ”

“ He put himself under obligation--in moments of supreme need--to dangerous persons, and suffered from the familiarity and perhaps the contempt of some who were his inferiors in breeding, in heart, and in soul. ”

“ It is to say that we must resign our conduct and our consciences to the will of others, and act wickedly, or well, as their good or evil may preponderate, without merit for virtue or responsibility for crime. ”

“ He was cursed with the possession of a power and authority which no man of narrow mind, bitter prejudices, and inordinate self-estimation can exercise without depraving himself as well as injuring the nation. ”

“ I have often hinted it, but I believe I have not explained myself so fully before; but my firm opinion and persuasion is that, with regard to our loyalty, our duty, and our moral and political principles, another equally inconsistent and despicable people does not exist in the universe. ”

“ Every paradox was to him a self-evident truth; every prejudice an undoubted absurdity. The weight of authority, the sanction of ages, the common consent of mankind, were vouchers only for ignorance, error, and imposture. ”

“ That the man would have to undergo the punishment of bigamy in its severest form, there was no doubt;—but would law, and justice, and the prevailing desire for revenge, be able to get at him in such a way that he might be hung? ”

“ Comparing one lot with another, does not rather the equality of the general doom of trouble and sorrow, of difficulty and struggle, witness the impartiality with which we are governed and our several fates distributed to us? The self-assured and self-relying strength of my constitution (I mean by that my character as well as the temperament from which it results) knows nothing of the trials that beset yours—doubt, distrust, despondency. ”

“ Not one, I fear, in that Common full of people, or, in a thousand, but one: and, when you tax them with treachery, and remind them of their high resolutions, they have forgotten that they made a vow. The individuals are fugitive, and in the act of becoming something else, and irresponsible. ”

“ Let great numbers in one section of such a nation as this conscientiously disapprove of their brethren in another section, and not only so, but hold them guilty of an immoral and an inhuman system, and deal with them in such ways as Conscience, that most merciless of inquisitors and persecutors, alone employs, and if the indicted section be not exasperated, it will be because the accusation is true,—that their system has destroyed their manhood. ”

“ If you had used your prerogative with discretion, you might perhaps, though I confess I do not see how, have escaped the obloquy of the world. Into your domestic scene, where the interest is more lively, and the watch upon you more unremitted, it must have introduced alienation and distrust. As it is, I see you surrounded with dangers of a thousand denominations. Police has its eyes upon you; superstition will regard you as the familiar of demons; avarice will turn upon you a regard of jealousy and insatiable appetite. ”

“ Among those most frank and fearless in the avowal of loyalty, and who suffered the severest penalties, were men of the noblest character and of the highest position. So, also, bearing the same odious title, were men of the most despicable nature, self-seeking and unprincipled, ready for any act of evil. ”

“ Laws, too, dictated by the powerful by reason of their rapacity, and endured by the feeble by reason of that hope, which generally glimmers in the human heart, and leads us to believe that unfavourable contingencies are reserved for others, favourable ones for ourselves! ”

“ Since, by the partial administration of our laws, innocence, when power was armed against it, had nothing better to hope for than guilt, what man of true courage would fail to set these laws at defiance, and, if he must suffer by their injustice, at least take care that he had first shown his contempt of their yoke? ”

“ His will being law, he will, in all probability, acquire a habit of governing them by force, and will cease to deal with them by moral means. He will forget their responsibility and his own, when either would come in competition with his interest or his gratification. ”

“ For all possible checks may be classed under two general heads,—want of will, and want of power. Now, if a king or an aristocracy, having the power to plunder and oppress the people, can want the will, all Mr Mill's principles of human nature must be pronounced unsound. ”

“ If he overlook man’s guilt, admit him to the enjoyment of his favour, and proceed by corrective discipline to restore his character, he unsettles the foundations of all equitable government, obliterates the everlasting distinctions between right and wrong, spreads consternation in Heaven, and proclaims impunity in Hell. ”

“ Have not our humble Petitions, breathing a true Spirit of rational Loyalty, and expressive of a just Sense of those Liberties the Restoration of which we implored, been followed with Grievance upon Grievance, as fast as the cruel Heart and Hand of a most execrable Paricide could invent and fabricate them? ”

“ Again, how many originally upright and faultless characters when raised to power, have been quickly corrupted by their freedom from restraint and by the temptations of a court, and have plunged headlong into every form of vice. ”

“ When these mountains of congealed Factions shall by the Sun-shine of Gods Mercy, and the splendor of your Vertues, be thawed and dissipated; and the abused Vulgar shall have learned, that none are greater Oppressours of their Estates, Liberties, and Consciences, then those men that intitle themselves The Patrons and Vindicators of them, only to usurp power over them: Let then no passion betray You to any study of revenge upon those, whose own sin and folly will sufficiently punish them in due time. ”

“ Whether a people, long oppressed with the encroachments of tyrants and usurpers, may disown their pretended authority; and, when imposed upon, to acknowledge it, may rather choose to suffer than to own it? ”