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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.
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.
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.
I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.
Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.
I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave's government also.
Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.
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?
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...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.
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.
It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State than it would to obey. I should feel as if I were worth less in that case.