In a really democratic State, where the whole people had equal voices in the government and all could exercise free power of persuasion, active rebellion, I think, would be very rare and seldom justified.  But there are, I believe, only four democratic States in the world.  All four are small, and of these Finland is overshadowed by despotism, and Australia and New Zealand have their foreign relations controlled and protected by the mother country.  Hitherto the experiment of a really democratic government has never been tried on this planet, except since 1909 in Norway, and even there with some limitations; and though democracy might possibly avert the necessity of rebellion, I rather doubt whether it can be called advantageous to any State to accord to its members the right of revolt.  The State that allows revolt—­that takes no notice of it—­has abdicated; it has ceased to exist.  But whether advantageous or not, no State has ever accorded that right in matters of government; nor does mankind accord it, without a prolonged struggle, even in religious doctrine and ordinary life.  Every revolt is tested as by fire, and we do not otherwise know the temper of the rebels or the value of their purpose.  Is it a trick?  Is it a fad?  Is it a plot for contemptible ends?  Is it a riot—­a moment’s effervescence—­or a revolution glowing from volcanic depths?  We only know by the tests of ridicule, suffering, and death.  In his “Ode to France,” written in 1797, Coleridge exclaimed: 

  “The Sensual and the Dark rebel in vain,
  Slaves by their own compulsion.”

They rebel in vain because the Sensual and the Dark cannot hold out long against the pressure of the Herd—­against the taunts of Society, against poverty, the loss of friends, the ruin of careers, the discomforts of prison, the misery of hunger and ill-treatment, and the terror of death.  It is only by the supreme triumph over such obstacles that revolt vindicates its righteousness.

And so, if any one among us is driven to rebellion by an irresistible necessity of soul, I would not have him wonder at the treatment he will certainly receive.  Such treatment is the hideous but inevitable test of his rebellion’s value, for so persecuted they the rebels that were before him.  Whether he rebels against a despotism like the Naples of fifty years ago or the Russia of to-day; or whether he rebels against the opinions or customs of his fellow-citizens, he will inevitably suffer, and the success that justifies rebellion may not be of this world.  But if his cause is high, the shame of his suffering will ultimately be attributed to the government or to the majority, never to himself.  There is a sense in which rebellion never fails.  It is almost always a symptom of intolerable wrong, for the penalties are so terrible that it would not be attempted without terrible provocation.  “Rebellion,” as Burke said, “does not arise from a desire for change, but from the impossibility of suffering more.”  It concentrates attention upon the wrong.  At the worst, though it be stamped into a grave, its spirit goes marching on, and the inspiration of all history would be lost were it not for rebellions, no matter whether they have succeeded or failed.