I
heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs
least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and
systematically. Carried 
out, it
finally amounts to this, which also I believe--"That government is best
which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be
the kind of government which they will have.
Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are
usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought
against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail,
may also at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the
standing government. The government
itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their
will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act
through it. Witness the present Mexican
war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government
as their tool; for in the outset, the people would not have consented to this
measure.
But,
to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves
no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of
government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward
obtaining it…
Unjust
laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to
amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them
at once? Men, generally, under such a
government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the
majority to alter them. They think that,
if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself
that the remedy is worse than the evil. It
makes it worse. Why is it not more apt
to anticipate and provide for reform? Why
does it not cherish its wise minority? Why
does it cry and resist before it is hurt?
Why does it not encourage its citizens to put out its faults, and do
better than it would have them? Why does
it always crucify Christ and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce
Washington and Franklin rebels?...
If
the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government,
let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth--certainly the machine will
wear out. If the injustice has a spring,
or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you
may consider whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if it is
of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another,
then, I say, break the law. Let your
life be a counter-friction to stop the machine.
What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to
the wrong which I condemn…
Thus
the state never intentionally confronts a man's sense, intellectual or
moral, but only his body, his senses. It
is not armed with superior with or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest. What force has a multitude? They only can force me who obey a higher law
than I. They force me to become like
themselves. I do not hear of men being
forced to live this way or that by masses of men. What sort of life were that to live? When I meet a government which says to me,
"Your money or your life," why should I be in haste to give it my
money? It may be in a great strait, and
not know what to do: I cannot help that.
It must help itself; do as I do. It
is not worth the while to snivel about it.
I am not responsible for the successful working of the machinery of
society. I am not the son of the
engineer. I perceive that, when an acorn
and a chestnut fall side by side, the one does not remain inert to make way for
the other, but both obey their own laws, and spring and grow and flourish
as best they can, till one, perchance, overshadows and destroys the other. If a plant cannot live according to nature,
it dies; and so a man…
