Laconics of Liberty

Laconics of Liberty Force is no remedy.—John Bright. Freedom is a new religion, the religion of our time.—Heine. Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.— Hobbes. It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.— Voltaire. When the state is corrupt then the laws are most multiplied. — Tacitus. Law grinds the poor, and the rich men rule the law.—Oliver Goldsmith. The free man is as courageous in timely retreat as in combac. —Spinoza. Desire nothing for yourself which you do not desire for others.—Spinoza. Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.—Cicero. I wish men to be free, as much from mobs as kings,—from you as me.—Byron. Freedom degenerates unless it has to struggle in its own defence.—Lord Acton. The liberty of the individual is a necessary postulate of human progress.—Ernest Renan. We have all of us sufficient fortitude to bear the misfortunes of others.—Rochefoucauld.

Men in earnest have no time to waste in patching fig leaves for the naked truth.—Lowell.

34 Liberty and the Great Libertarians The concealment of truth is the only indecorum known to science.—Edward JVesiermarck. Liberty of thought is a mockery if liberty of speech and action is denied.—Rev. Sidney Holmes. Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.—Lord Acton. Where slavery is there liberty cannot be, and where liberty is there slavery cannot be.—Charles Sumner. God grants liberty only to those who live it, and are always ready to guard and defend it.—Daniel Webster. Man has a right to think all things, speak all things, write all things, but not to impose his opinions.—Machiavelli. If you would achieve undying fame, attach yourself to the most unpopular righteous cause.—George William Curtis. Society can overlook murder, adultery or swindling; it never forgives the preaching of a new gospel.—Frederick Harrison. I don't believe in capital punishment, Hinnissy, but 'twill never be abolished while th' people injie it so much.—Mr.

Dooley. There is one thing in the world more wicked than the desire to command, and that is the will to obey.—William Kingdon Clifford. All our liberties are due to men who, when their conscience has compelled them, have broken the laws of the land.—Dr. Clifford. They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.—Benjamin Franklin. It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon a supposition he may abuse it. —Cromwell.

Laconics of Liberty 35 It is doubtful whether any tyranny can be worse than that exercised in the name of the sovereignty of the people.— George L. Scherger. It is not the disease, but the physician; it is the pernicious hand of government alone which can reduce a whole people to despair.—Junius. Rayformers, Hinnissy, is in favor iv suppressing iverything, but rale politicians believes in suppressin' nawthin' but ividence.—Mr. Dooley. Every citizen may freely speak, write or print on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty.—Constitution of Pennsylvania. Liberty which is the nurse of all great wits. . . . Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.—Milton. An ambassador is a man who goes abroad to lie for the good of his country. A journalist is a man who stays at home to pursue the same vocation.—Dr. S. Johnson.

To argue against any breach of liberty from the ill use that may be made of it, is to argue against liberty itself, since all is capable of being abused.—Lord Lyttleton. I'll niver go down again to see sojers off to th' war. But ye'll see me at th' depot with a brass band whin th' men that causes wars starts f'r th' scene iv carnage.—Mr. Dooley. Did the mass of men know the actual selfishness and injustice of their rulers, not a government would stand a year; the world would ferment with Revolution.— Theodore Parker. It takes great strength to live where you belong When other people think that you are wrong. —Charlotte Perkins Gilman. All of our greatness was born of liberty, even our commercialism was rocked in the cradle of democracy, and we cannot 36 Liberty and the Great Libertarians strangle the mother without destroying her children.—Altgeld. We crave for the good opinion of the world, in which we don't believe, and tremble in face of its condemnation, which we despise and condemn in our hearts.—Hermann Sudermann.

A temporal government in the hands of ecclesiastics develops into a mild, petty, listless, respectable, monkish, invincible despotism just as any plant develops into its flower.—Taine. Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? I know not what course others may take, but as for me. give me liberty or give me death!—Patrick Henry, All truth is safe, and nothing else is safe; and he who keeps back the truth or withholds it from men, from motives of expediency, is either a coward, or a criminal, or both.—Max Muller. Everywhere the strong have made the laws and oppressed the weak; and, if they have sometimes consulted the interests of society, they have always forgotten those of humanity. —Turgot. The persecuting spirit has its origin morally in the disposition of man to domineer over his fellow creatures; intellectually, in the assumption that one's own opinions are infallibly correct.—John Fiske.

The freest government cannot long endure when the tendency of the law is to create a rapid accumulation of property in the hands of a few, and to render the masses poor and dependent.—Daniel Webster, The fancy that war is necessary to maintain the ideals of manly courage is as mistaken as is the notion that the system of the duel was required to uphold the sense of personal honor. — Nathaniel South gate Shaler. Every citizen may freely speak, write and publish his sentiLaconics of Liberty 37 ments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty. No law shall ever be passed to curtail or restrain the liberty of speech or of the press.—Constitution of Connecticut The good of mankind is a dream if it is not to be secured by preserving for all men the possible maximum of liberty of action and of freedom of thought.—John M. Robertson. For always in thine eyes, O Liberty! Shines that high light whereby the world is saved; And, though thou slay us, we will trust in thee.

—John Hay. 'Tis a good thing preachers don't go to Congress. Whin they're ca'm they'd wipe out all th' laws, an' whin they're excited, they'd wipe out all th' popylation. They're niver two jumps fr'm th' thumbscrew.—Mr. Dooley. To this thought I cling, with virtue rife, Wisdom's last fruit profoundly true. Freedom alone he earns as well as life, Who day by day must conquer them anew.—Goethe. Everyone may seek his own happiness in the way that seems good to himself, provided that he infringe not such freedom of others to strive after a similar end as is consistent with the freedom of all according to a possible general law.— Kant. Although I am not such a fanatic for the liberty of the subject as to plead that interfering with the way in which a man may choose to be killed is a violation of that liberty, yet I do think that it is far better to let everybody do as he likes.—Huxley. To mind your own business and do the square thing with your neighbors is an extremely high order of patriotism. If every man were to do this, flags, governments, powers, dominations and thrones might all take an indefinite vacation.—Puck.

And this is Liberty—that one grow after the law of his own life, hindering not another; and this is Opportunity; and the fruit 38 Liberty and the Great Libertarians thereof is Variation; and from the glad growing and the fruitfeasting comes Sympathy, which is appreciative and helpful good-fellowship.—J. Wm. Lloyd. He's true to God who's true to man; where ever wrong is done, To the humblest and the weakest, 'neath the all-beholding sun, That wrong is also done to us, and they are slaves most base, Whose love of right is for themselves and not for all the race. •—Lowell. Let us all seek truth as if none of us had possession of it. The opinions which to this day have governed the earth, produced by chance, disseminated in obscurity, admitted without discussion, credited from a love of novelty and imitation, have in a manner clandestinely usurped their empire.—Volney. There is tonic in the things that men do not love to hear; and there is damnation in the things that wicked men love to hear. Free speech is to a great people what winds are to oceans and malarial regions, which waft away the elements of disease, and bring new elements of health; and where free speech is stopped miasma is bred, and death comes fast.— Henry Ward Beecber.

In Russia, whenever they catch a man, woman, or child that has got any brains or education or character, they ship that person straight to Siberia. It is admirable, it is wonderful. It is so searching and so effective that it keeps the general level of Russian intellect and education down to that of the czar. —Mark Twain. The great truth has finally gone forth to all the ends of the earth that man shall no more render account to man for his belief, over which he has himself no control. Henceforward nothing shall prevail upon us to praise or to blame any one for that which he can no more change than he can the hue of his skin or the height of his stature.—Lord Brougham. In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

Laconics of Liberty 39 And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. If the truth shall make you free, ye shall be freed indeed. He that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin.—Bible. The constitution of man is such that for a long time after he has discovered the incorrectness of the ideas prevailing around him, he shrinks from openly emancipating himself from their domination; and constrained by the force of circumstances, he becomes a hypocrite, publicly applauding what his private judgment condemns.—Dr. /. W. Draper. The whole progress of society consists in learning how to attain, by the independent action or voluntary association of individuals, those objects which are at first attempted only through the agency of government, and in lessening the sphere of legislation and enlarging that of the individual reason and conscience.—Samuel J. Tilden.

Open thine eyes to see, Slave, and thy feet are free. Thy bonds, and thy beliefs are one in kind, And of thy fears thine irons wrought. Hang weights about thee fashioned out of thine own thought.—Swinburne. Of what use is freedom of thought, if it will not produce freedom of action, which is the sole end, how remote soever in appearance, of all objections against Christianity? And therefore the free thinkers consider it an edifice where all the parts have such a mutual dependence on each other, that, if you pull out one single nail, the whole fabric must fall to the ground.—SwijU The modern reformist, Philosophy, which annihilates the individual by way of aiding the mass, and the late reformist, Legislation, which prohibits pleasure with the view of advancing happiness, seem to be chips of that old block of a French feudal law which, to prevent young partridges from being disturbed, 40 Liberty and the Great Libertarians imposed penalties upon hoeing and weeding.—Edgar Allen Poe.

The law of nature, being co-eval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is superior in obligation to every other. It is binding all over the globe, in all countries, and at all times; no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this, and such of them as are valid derive their force and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from the original.—Blackstone. O sorrowing hearts of slaves, We heard you beat from far! We bring the light that saves, We bring the morning star; Freedom's good things we bring you, Whence all good things are. —Algernon Charles Swinburne. In the twentieth century war will be dead, the scaffold will be dead, royalty will be dead, and dogmas will be dead; but man will live. For all, there will be but one country—that country the whole earth; for all, there will be but one hope —that hope the whole heaven. All hail, then, to that noble twentieth century, which shall own our children, and which our children shall inherit.—Victor Hugo.

Over against Nature stands the Man, and deep in his heart is the passion for liberty. For the passion for liberty is only another name for life itself. Liberty is a word of much sophistication, but it means, when it means anything, opportunity to live one's own life in one's own way. . . . The original sin of the world is not contempt for arbitrary laws, but respect for them. . . . —Rev. Charles Ferguson. Without free speech no search for truth is possible; without free speech no discovery of truth is useful; without free speech progress is checked and the nations no longer march forward toward the nobler life which the future holds for man. Better a thousand fold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech.

Laconics of Liberty 41 The abuse dies in a day, but the denial slays the life of the people and entombs the hope of the race.—Charles Bradlaugh. Bigotry has no head and cannot think, no heart and cannot feel. When she moves it is in wrath; when she pauses it is amid ruin. Her prayers are curses, her God is a demon, her communion is death, her vengeance is eternity, her decalogue written in the blood of her victims, and if she stops for a moment in her infernal flight it is upon a kindred rock to whet her vulture fang for a more sanguinary desolation.—Daniel O'Connell. The man of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys. Power, like a desolating pestilence, Pollutes whatever it touches; .... and obedience, Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth, Makes slaves of men, and, of the human frame, A mechanized automaton.—Shelley. Self-love is a necessary, indestructible, universal law and principle, inseparable from every kind of love. Religion must and does confirm this on every page of her history. Wherever man tries to resist that human egoism, whether in religion, philosophy, or politics, he sinks into pure nonsense and insanity; for the sense which forms the egoism of all human instincts, desires and actions, is the satisfaction of the human being, the satisfaction of human egoism.—Feuerbach.

I say discuss all and expose all—I am for every topic openly; I say there can be no safety for these States without innovators—without free tongues, and ears willing to hear the tongues; And I announce as a glory of these States, that they respectfully listen to propositions, reforms, fresh views and doctrines, from successions of men and women. Each age with its own growth!—Walt Whitman. Of all the miserable, unprofitable, inglorious wars in the 42 Liberty and the Great Libertarians world is the war against words. Let men say just what they like. Let them propose to cut every throat and burn every house—if so they like it. We have nothing to do with a man's words or a man's thoughts, except to put against them better words and better thoughts, and so to win in the great moral and intellectual duel that is always going on, and on which all progress depends.—Auberon Herbert. And this freedom will be the freedom of all. It will loosen both master and slave from the chain. For, by a divine paradox, wherever there is one slave there are two. So in the wonderful reciprocities of being, we can never reach the higher levels until all our fellows ascend with us. There is no true liberty for the individual except as he finds it in the liberty of all.

There is no true security for the individual except as he finds it in the security of all.—Edwin Markham. It is the greatest of all inconsistencies to wish to be other than we are. The more a man has in himself, the less he will want from other people—the less, indeed, other people can be to him. This is why a high degree of intellect tends to make a man unsocial. A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and, if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.—Schopenhauer. Would to God that this hot and bloody struggle was over, and that peace may come at last to the world! And yet I invoke no seeming peace that the weaker may ever anon be plundered, but a peace with liberty, equality, and honest man's and not robber's order for its condition. . . . Let others give aid and comfort to despots. Be it ours to stand for liberty and justice, nor fear to lock arms with those who are called hot-heads and demagogues, when the good cause requires.

—Chas. A. Dana.

Laconics of Liberty 43 They are slaves who fear to speak For the fallen and the weak; They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scoffing, and abuse Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think; They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three.—Lowell. If governments are to accept the principle that the only limits to the enforcement of the moral standard of the majority are the narrow expediencies of each special case, without reference to any deep and comprehensive principle covering all the largest considerations, why, then, the society to which we ought to look with most admiration and envy is the Eastern Empire during the ninth and tenth centuries, when the Byzantine system of a thorough subordination of the spiritual power had fully consolidated itself.—John Morley. Power usurped Is weakness when opposed; conscious of wrong 'Tis pusillanimous and prone to flight.

But slaves that once conceive the glowing thought Of freedom, in that hope itself possess All that the contest calls for—spirit, strength. The scorn of danger and united hearts, The surest presage of the good they seek.—Cowper. There was once a discussion between Mr. Pitt and some of his friends on what were the qualities most needed in politics. Was it knowledge, patience, courage, eloquence, or what was it? Mr. Pitt said, "Patience." We liberals have tried patience for twenty years. I vote we now try "courage." I say again, don't let us be afraid of our own shadows. We have principles we believe in, we have faith, we have great traditions, and we have a great cause behind us and before us. Let us not lose courage and straightforwardness.—John Morley.

44 Liberty and the Great Libertarians What greater life, what grander claim, Than that which bids you to be just? What brighter halo, fairer fame, Than shines above the sacred dust Of him who, formed of finer clay, Stood firm, a hero of revolt Against the weakness of his day, The traitor's trick, the pander's fault?—Gordak. The enlargement of freedom has always been due to heretics who have been unrequited during their day and defamed when dead. No (other) publisher in any country ever incurred so much peril to free the press as Richard Carlile. Every British bookseller has profited by his intrepedity and endurance. Speculations of philosophy and science, which are now part of the common intelligence, power and profit, would have been stifled to this day but for him.—George Jacob Holyoake* Fear not the tyrants shall rule forever, Or the priests of the evil faith; They stand on the brink of that mighty river Whose waves they have tainted with death; It is fed from the depths of a thousand dells, Around them it foams and rages and swells, And their swords and their scepters I floating see, Like wrecks on the Surge of eternity.—Shelley.

The idea of governing by force another man, who I believe to be my equal in the sight of God, is repugnant to me. I do not want to do it. I do not want any one to govern me by any kind of force. I am a reasoning being, and I only need to be shown what is best for me, when I will take that course or do that thing simply because it is best, and so will you. I do not believe that a soul was ever forced toward anything except toward ruin. Liberty for the few is not liberty. Liberty for me and slavery for you means slavery for both.—Samuel M. Jones.

Laconics of Liberty 45 Wherever bibliolatry has prevailed, bigotry and cruelty have accompanied it. It lies at the root of the deep-seated, sometimes disguised, but never absent, antagonism of all the varieties of ecclesiasticism to the freedom of thought and to the spirit of scientific investigation. To those who look upon ignorance as one of the chief sources of evil, and hold veracity, not merely in act, but in thought, to be the one condition of true progress, whether moral or intellectual, it is clear that the biblical idol must go the way of all other idols, of infallibility in all shapes, lay or clerical.— Thomas Henry Huxley. Yet let us ponder boldly—'tis a base Abandonment of reason to resign Our right of thought—our last and only place Of refuge; this, at least, shall still be mine: Though from our birth the faculty divine Is chain'd and tortured—cabin'd, cribb'd, confined, And bred in darkness, lest the truth should shine Too brightly on the unprepared mind, The beam pours in, for time and skill will couch the blind.—Byron.

Do nothing to others which you would not have them do to you. Now I cannot see how, on this principle, one man is authorized to say to another, Believe what I believe, and what you cannot, or you shall be put to death. And yet this is said in direct terms in Portugal, Spain, and at Goa. In some other countries, indeed, they now content themselves with saying only, Believe as I do, or I shall hate you, and will do you all the mischief in my power. What an impious monster thou art! Not to be of my religion is to be of none. You ought to be held in abhorrence by your neighbors, your countrymen, and by all mankind.—Voltaire. No revolution ever rises above the intellectual level of those who make it, and little is gained where one false notion supplants another. But we must some day, at last and forever, cross 46 Liberty and the Great Libertarians the line between nonsense and common sense. And on that day we shall pass from class paternalism, originally derived from the fetich fiction in times of universal ignorance, to human brotherhood in accordance with the nature of things and our growing knowledge of it; from political government to industrial administration; from competition in individualism to individuality in cooperation; from war and despotism in any form to peace and liberty.—Carlyle.

The State makes use of the money which it extorts from me to unjustly impose fresh constraints upon me; this is the case when it prescribes for me its theology or its philosophy, when it prescribes for me or denies me a special form of religious observance, when it pretends to regulate my morals and my manners, to limit my labor or my expenditure, to fix the price of my merchandise or the rate of my wages. With the coin which I do not owe it and which it steals from me it defrays the expense of the persecution which it inflicts upon me. Let us beware of the encroachments of the State, and suffer it to be nothing more than a watch-dog.— Taine. Now for the promised test, by which, when applied to a man, it may be seen whether the government he means to give his support to is of the one sort or of the other. Put him to this question: Will you, sir, or will you not, concur in putting matters on such a footing, in respect to the liberty of the press, and the liberty of public discussion, that, at the hands of the persons exercising the powers of government, a man shall have no more fear from speaking and writing against them, than from speaking and writing for them? If his answer be yes, the government he declares in favor of, is an undespotic one; if his answer be no, the government he declares in favor of, is a despotic one.—Jeremy Bentham.

Ideas are always liveliest when attempts are made to suppress them. The very worst way to suppress an idea is to attempt to suppress it. For, if an idea is true, you can't supLaconics of Liberty 47 press it, and if it is false it does not need to be suppressed—it will suppress itself. If we all agreed finally and for good, talking would be nonsense. But because we disagree talking is the part of wisdom. The wise men who made the Constitution of the State of Pennsylvania knew this. So they advocated free speech. The men who today in Philadelphia make the administration of the laws foolish don't know it. So they advocate a despotism.— Horace Traubel. Liberty of thought and speech have, after a prolonged struggle, been conceded, although there may be found people who, on their own pet failings, even yet refuse to allow the right unreservedly. Liberty of speech is justified on three grounds: First, if the opinion be true, the wrorld reaps a benefit to be derived from the truth; secondly, if the opinion be false, truth is the more strengthened by contest with it, and lastly, if it be partly true and partly false, our opinions, if they do not entirely lose their weakness, at any rate gain the corrections which have greatly improved them. The commencement of the struggle was due to religion, and the man who brought the long fight to a close and finally settled that matter was Charles Bradlaugh.—J. P. Poole.

There are no specious pretexts with which hypocrisy and tyranny have not colored their desire of imposing silence on men of discernment; and there is no virtuous citizen that can see in the pretexts any legitimate reason for their remaining silent. . . . To limit the press is to insult the nation; to prohibit the reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves. Should we to destroy error compel it to silence? No. How then? Let it talk on. Error, obscure of itself, is rejected by every sound understanding. If time have not given it credit, and it be not favored by government, it cannot bear the eye 48 Liberty and the Great Libertarians of examination. Reason will ultimately direct wherever it be freely exercised.—Helvetius. I care not for the truth or error of the opinions held or uttered, nor for the wisdom of the words or time of their attempted expression, when I cqnsider this great question of fundamental significance, this great fight which must first be secure before free society can be said to stand on any foundation, but only on temporary or capricious props.

Rich or poor, white or black, great or small, wise or foolish, in season or out of season, in the right or in the wrong, whosoever will speak, let him speak, and whosoever will hear, let him hear. And let no one pretend to the prerogative of judging another man's liberty. In this respect there is, and there can be, no superiority of persons or privileges, nor the slightest pretext for any.—/. A. Andrews, Governor of Massachusetts. We will speak out, we will be heard, Though all earth's systems crack; We will not bate a single word, Nor take a letter back. Let liars fear, let cowards shrink, Let traitors turn away; Whatever we have dared to think That dare we also say. We speak the truth, and what care we For hissing and for scorn, While some faint gleamings we can see Of Freedom's coming morn.—James R. Lowell. It is apprehended that arbitrary power would steal in upon us, were we not careful to prevent its progress, and were there not an easy method of conveying the alarm from one end of the kingdom to another. The spirit of the people must frequently be roused, in order to curb the ambition of the court, and the dread of rousing this spirit must be employed to preLaconics of Liberty 49 vent that ambition. Nothing is so effectual to this purpose as the liberty of the press, by which all the learning, wit, and the genius of the nation may be employed on the side of freedom, and every one be animated to its defense. As long, therefore, as the republican part of our government can maintain itself against the monarchical, it will naturally be careful to keep the press open, as of importance to its own preservation.— Hume.

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, In the strife of truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side; Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight, Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right, And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light. New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth; They must upward still, and onward, who keep abreast of Truth; Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be, Launch our Mayflower and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea, Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key.—James Russell Lowell. When for the free human beings of the future it will no longer be the purpose of life to obtain the means of subsistence, but, as a result of a new belief, or rather knowledge, they will be certain of obtaining the means of subsistence in return for an appropriate natural activity, when in short, industry will no longer be our mistress, but pur servant, the true purpose of life will become the enjoyment of life, and by education we will endeavor to make our children capable of its real enjoyment. An education, founded on the exercise of strength and 50 Liberty and the Great Libertarians the care of physical beauty, will, owing to the love for the child and the joy at the development of its beauty, become a purely artistic one, and every human being will in some way be a true artist. The diversity of natural inclinations will develop the most manifold tendencies in an unthought-of wealth.

—Richard Wagner. "Educate women like men," says Rousseau, "and the more they resemble our sex the less power will they have over us." This is the very point I aim at. I do not wish them to have power over men, but over themselves. It is not empire, but equality and friendship, which women want. Speaking of women at large, their first duty is to themselves as rational creatures, and the next, in point of importance, as citizens. Men submit everywhere to oppression, when they have only to lift their heads to throw off the yoke; yet, instead of asserting their birthright, they quietly lick the lust and say, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. Women, I argue from analogy, are degraded by the same propensity to enjoy the present moment; and, at last, despise the freedom which they have not sufficient virtue to struggle to attain.—Mary IVollstonecraft. I think the religious tests were invented not so much to secure religion as the emoluments of it. When a religion is good, I conceive that it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it, so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.

If we look back into history for the character of the present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practiced it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England blamed persecution in the Romish church, but practiced it upon the Puritans. These Laconics of Liberty 51 found it wrong in the Bishops, but fell into the same practice themselves both here (England) and in New England.— Benjamin Franklin. Every new truth which has ever been propounded has, for a time, caused mischief; it has produced discomfort, and often unhappiness; sometimes by disturbing social or religious arrangements, and sometimes merely by the disruption of old and cherished association of thoughts. It is only after a certain interval, and when the frame-work of affairs has adjusted itself to the new truth, that its good effects preponderate; and the preponderance continues to increase, until, at length, the truth causes nothing but good. But, at the outset there is always harm. And if the truth is very great as well as very new the harm is serious. Men are made uneasy; they flinch; they cannot bear the sudden light; a general restlessness supervenes; the face of society is disturbed, or perhaps convulsed; old interests and old beliefs have been destroyed before new ones have been created.

These symptoms are the precursors of revolution; they have preceded all the great ehanges through which the world has passed.—Buckle's "History of Civilisation." We do not mean merely freedom from restraint or compulsion. We do not mean merely freedom to do as we like, irrespectively of what it is that we like. We do not mean a freedom that can be enjoyed by one man or one set of men at the cost of a loss of freedom to others. When we speak of freedom as something to be highly prized, we mean a positive power or capacity of doing or enjoying something worth doing or enjoying, and that, too, something that we do or enjoy in common with others. We mean by it a power which each man exercises through the help or security given him by his fellowmen, and which he in turn helps to secure for them. When we measure the progress of a society by the growth in freedom, we measure it by the increasing development and exercise on the whole of those powers of contributing to social good with 52 Liberty and the Great Libertarians which we believe the members of the society to be endowed; in short, by the greater power on the part of the citizens as a body to make the most and best of themselves.—Prof, T. H.

Green, There is only one cure for evils which newly-acquired freedom produces, and that cure is freedom. When a prisoner first leaves his cell, he cannot bear the light of day, he is unable to discriminate colors, or recognize faces. The remedy is, to accustom him to the rays of the sun. The blaze of truth and liberty may at first dazzle and bewilder nations which have become half blind in the house of bondage. But let them gaze on, and they will soon be able to bear it. In a few years men learn to reason. The extreme violence of opinions subsides. Hostile theories correct each other. The scattered elements of truth cease to contend, and begin to coalesce. And, at length, a system of justice and order is educed out of the chaos. Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it down as a selfevident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait forever.—Macauley.

Indeed, no opinion or doctrine, of whatever nature it be, or whatever be its tendency, ought to be suppressed. For it is either manifestly true, or it is manifestly false, or its truth or falsehood is dubious. Its tendency is manifestly good, or manifestly bad, or it is dubious and concealed. There are no other assignable conditions, no other functions of the problem. In the case of its being manifestly true, and of good tendency, there can be no dispute. Nor in the case of its being manifestly otherwise; for by the terms it can mislead nobody. If its truth or its tendency be dubious, it is clear that nothing Laconics of Liberty 53 can bring the good to light, or expose the evil, but full and free discussion. Until this takes place, a plausible fallacy may do harm; but discussion is sure to elicit the truth, and fix public opinion on a proper basis; and nothing else can do it. Criminality can only be predicated where there is an obstinate, unreasonable refusal to consider any kind of evidence but what exclusively supports one side of a question.

It follows that errors of the understanding must be treated by appeals to the understanding. That argument should be opposed by argument, and fact by fact. That fine and imprisonment are bad forms of syllogism, well calculated to irritate, but powerless for refutation. They may suppress truth, they can never elicit it.— Thomas Cooper. If I could have entertained the slightest apprehension that the Constitution framed in the Convention when I had the honor to preside, might possibly endanger the religious rights of any ecclesiastical society, certainly I would never have placed my signature to it; and if I could now conceive that the general government might be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny and every specious of religious persecution.

Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by a difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see their religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society. Government is not reason, it is not eloquence—it is force! Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master; never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.

54 Liberty and the Great Libertarians The government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded upon the Christian religion.—George Washington. THE SOLDIER'S CREED By Ernest Crosby "Captain, what do you think," I asked, "Of the part your soldiers play?" But the captain answered, "I do not think; I do not think, I obey!" "Do you think you should shoot a patriot down, Or help a tyrant slay?" But the captain answered, "I do not think; I do not think, I obey!" "Do you think your conscience was made to die, And your brain to rot away?" But the captain answered, "I do not think; I do not think, I obey!" "Then if this is your soldier's creed," I cried, "You're a mean unmanly crew; And for all your feathers and gilt and braid I am more of a man than you! "For whatever my place in life may be, And whether I swim or sink, I can say with pride, 'I do not obey; I do not obey, I think!' "

NO MASTER By William Morris Saith man to man, We've heard and known That we no master need To live upon this earth, our own, In the fair and manly deed; Laconics of Liberty 55 The grief of slaves long passed away For us hath forged the chain, Till now each worker's patient day Builds up the House of Pain. And we, shall we too crouch and quail, Ashamed, afraid of strife; And lest our lives untimely fail Embrace the death in life? Nay, cry aloud and have no fear; We few against the world; Awake, arise! the hope we bear Against the curse is hurl'd. It grows, it grows: are we the same, The feeble band, the few? Or what are these with eyes aflame, And hands to deal and do? This is the host that bears the word, No Master, High or Low, A lightning flame, a shearing sword, A storm to overthrow. Let us all labor to add all needful guarantees for the more perfect security of free thought, free speech, and free press, pure morals, unfettered religious sentiments, and of equal rights and privileges to all men, irrespective of nationality, color, or religion. Encourage free schools, and resolve that not one dollar of money shall be appropriated to the support of any sectarian school. Resolve that neither the state nor nation, or both combined, shall support institutions of learning other than those sufficient to afford every child growing up in the land the opportunity of a good common school education, unmixed with sectarian, pagan, or atheistical tenets. Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the 56 Liberty and the Great Libertarians private schools, supported entirely by private contributions.

Keep the church and the state forever separate. I would call your attention to the importance of correcting an evil that, if permitted to continue, will probably lead to great trouble in our land before the close of the nineteenth century. It is the acquisition of vast amounts of untaxed church property. In 1850, I believe, the church property of the United States, which paid no tax, municipal or state, amounted to about $83,000,000. In 1860 the amount had doubled. In 1875 it is about $1,000,000,000. By 1900, without check, it is safe to say this property will reach a sum exceeding $3,000,000,000. So vast a sum, receiving all the protection and benefits of government without bearing its proportion of the burdens and expenses of the same, will not be looked upon acquiescently by those who have to pay the taxes. In a growing country, where real estate enhances so rapidly with time as in the United States, there is scarcely a limit to the wealth that may be acquired by corporations, religious or otherwise, if allowed to retain real estate without taxation. The contemplation of so vast a property as here alluded to, without taxation, may lead to sequestration without constitutional authority, and through blood. I would suggest the taxation of all property equally, whether church or corporation.— U. S. Grant In a word, there is scarcely a disposition that marks the love of abstract truth and scarcely a rule which reason teaches as essential for its attainment, that theologians did not, for centuries, stigmatize as offensive to the Almighty. By destroying every book that could generate discussion, by diffusing through every field of knowledge a spirit of boundless credulity, and, above all, by persecuting with atrocious cruelty those who differed from their opinions, they succeeded for a long period in almost arresting the action of the European mind, and in persuading men that a critical, impartial, and enquiring spirit Laconics of Liberty 57 was the worst form of vice. From this frightful condition Europe was at last rescued by the intellectual influences that produced the Reformation, by the teaching of those great philosophers who clearly laid down the conditions of enquiry, and by those bold innovators who, with the stake of Bruno and Vanini before their eyes, dared to challenge directly the doctrines of the past. By those means the spirit of philosophy or of truth became prominent, and the spirit of dogmatism, with all its consequences, was proportionately weakened. As long as the latter spirit possessed an indisputable ascendency, persecution was ruthless, universal, and unquestioned. When the former spirit became more powerful, the language of anathema grew less peremptory. Exceptions and qualifications were introduced; the full meaning of the words was no longer realized; persecution became languid; it changed its character; it exhibited itself rather in a general tendency than in overt acts; it grew apologetical, timid and evasive. In one age the persecutor burnt the heretic; in another, he crushed him with penal laws; in a third, he withheld from him places of emolument and dignity; in a fourth, he subjected him to the excommunication of society. Each stage of advancing toleration marks a stage of the decline of the spirit of dogmatism and of the increase of the spirit of truth.

On the other hand, men who have been deeply imbued with the spirit of earnest and impartial enquiry, will invariably come to value such a disposition more than any particular doctrines to which it may lead them; they will deny the necessity of correct opinions; they will place the moral far above the dogmatic side of their faith; they will give free scope to every criticism that restricts their belief; and they will value men according to their acts, and not at all according to their opinions. The first of these tendencies is essentially Roman Catholic. The second is essentially rationalistic.—W. E. H. Lecky.

58 Liberty and the Great Libertarians The greatest thing in the world is for a man to know that he is his own. We ought to hold with all our force, both of hands and teeth, the use of the pleasures of life that one after another our years snatch away from us. To speak less of one's self than what one really is, is folly, not modesty; and to take that for current pay which is under a man's value is pusillanimity and cowardice. Retire yourself into yourself, but first prepare yourself there to receive yourself; it were folly to trust yourself in your own hands if you cannot govern yourself. We have lived long enough for others; let us, at least, live out the small remnant of life for ourselves; let us now call in our thoughts and intentions to ourselves. It is a wretched and dangerous thing to depend upon others; we ourselves, in whom is ever the most just and safest dependence, are not sufficiently sure. I have nothing mine but myself.

It is not enough to get remote from the public; 'tis not enough to shift the soil only; a man must flee from the popular conditions that have taken possession of his soul, he must sequester and come again to himself. My trade and art is to live; he that forbids me to speak according to my own sense, experience and practice, may as well enjoin an architect not to speak of building according to his own knowledge, but according to that of his neighbor; according to the knowledge of another and not according to his own. As for the fine saying, with which ambition and avarice palliate their vices, that we are not born for ourselves but for the public, let us boldly appeal to those who are in public affairs; let them lay their hands upon their hearts and then say whether, on the contrary, they do rather aspire to titles and offices and that tumult of the world to make their private advantage at the public expense.

Laconics of Liberty 59 The laws keep up their credit, not by being just, but because they are laws; 'tis the mystic foundation of their authority; they have no other, and it well answers their purpose. They are often made by fools; still oftener by men who, out of hatred to equality, fail in equity; but always by men, vain and irresolute authors. There is nothing so much, nor so grossly, nor so ordinarily faulty, as the laws. Whoever obeys them because they are just, does not justly obey them as he ought. —Montaigne.