OBJECTION VI.

I shall only take such an office as brings me into no connection with slavery.

ANSWER.  Government is a whole; unless each in his circle aids his next neighbor, the machine will stand still.  The Senator does not himself return the fugitive slave, but he appoints the Marshal, whose duty it is to do so.  The State representative does not himself appoint the Judge who signs the warrant for the slave’s recapture, but he chooses the United States Senator who does appoint that Judge.  The elector does not himself order out the militia to resist “domestic violence,” but he elects the President, whose duty requires, that a case occurring, he should do so.

To suppose that each of these may do that part of his duty that suits him, and leave the rest undone, is practical anarchy.  It is bringing ourselves precisely to that state which the Hebrew describes.  “In those days there was no king in Israel, but each man did what was right in his own eyes.”  This is all consistent in us, who hold that man is to do right, even if anarchy follows.  How absurd to set up such a scheme, and miscall it a government,—­where nobody governs, but everybody does as he pleases.

OBJECTION VII.

As men and all their works are imperfect, we may innocently “support a Government which, along with many blessings, assists in the perpetration of some wrong.”

ANSWER.  As nobody disputes that we may rightly assist the worst Government in doing good, provided we can do so without at the same time aiding it in the wrong it perpetrates, this must mean, of course, that it is right to aid and obey a Government in doing wrong, if we think that, on the whole, the Government effects more good than harm.  Otherwise the whole argument is irrelevant, for this is the point in dispute; since every office of any consequence under the United States Constitution has some immediate connection with Slavery.  Let us see to what lengths this principle will carry one.  Herod’s servants, then, were right in slaying every child in Bethlehem, from two years old and under, provided they thought Herod’s Government, on the whole, more a blessing than a curse to Judea!  The soldiers of Charles II. were justified in shooting the Covenanters on the muirs of Scotland, if they thought his rule was better, on the whole, for England, than anarchy!  According to this theory, the moment the magic wand of Government touches our vices, they start up into virtues!  But has Government any peculiar character or privilege in this respect?  Oh, no—­Government is only an association of individuals, and the same rules of morality which govern my conduct in relation to a thousand men, ought to regulate my conduct to any one.  Therefore, I may innocently aid a man in doing wrong, if I think that, on the whole, he has more virtues than vices.  If he gives bread