When did any sane man conclude that our Saviour’s voluntary payment of a tax acknowledged the rightfulness of Rome’s authority over Judea?

“The States,” says Chief Justice Marshall, “have only not to elect Senators, and this government expires without a struggle.”

Every November, then, we create the government anew.  Now, what “instinct” will tell a common-sense man, that the act of a sovereign,—­voting—­which creates a wicked government, is, essentially the same as the submission of a subject,—­tax-paying,—­an act done without our consent.  It should be remembered, that we vote as sovereigns,—­we pay taxes as subjects.  Who supposes that the humble tax-payer of Austria, who does not, perhaps, know in what name the charter of his bondage runs, is responsible for the doings of Metternich?  And what sane man likens his position to that of the voting sovereign of the United States?  My innocent acts may, through others’ malice, result in evil.  In that case, it will be for my best judgment to determine whether to continue or cease them.  They are not thereby rendered essentially sinful.  For instance, I walk out on Sabbath morning.  The priest over the way will exclaim, “Sabbath-breaker,” and the infidel will delude his followers, by telling them I have no regard for Christianity.  Still, it will be for me to settle which, in present circumstances, is best,—­to remain in, and not be misconstrued, or to go out and bear a testimony against the superstitious keeping of the day.  Different circumstances will dictate different action on such a point.

I may often be the occasion of evil when I am not responsible for it.  Many innocent acts occasion evil, and in such case all I am bound to ask myself before doing such innocent act, is, “Shall I occasion, on the whole, more harm or good.”  There are many cases where doing a duty even, we shall occasion evil and sin in others.  To save a slaveholder from drowning, when we know he has made a will freeing his slaves, would put off, perhaps forever, their emancipation, but of course that is not my fault.  This making a man responsible for all the evil his acts, incidentally, without his will, occasion, reminds me of that principle of Turkish law which Dr. Clarke mentions, in his travels, and which they call “homicide by an intermediate cause.”  The case he relates is this:  A young man in love poisoned himself, because the girl’s father refused his consent to the marriage.  The Cadi sentenced the father to pay a fine of $80, saying “if you had not had a daughter, this young man had not loved; if he had not loved, he had never been disappointed; if not disappointed, he would never have taken poison.”  It was the same Cadi possibly, who sentenced the island of Samos to pay for the wrecking of a vessel, on the principle that “if the island had not been in the way, the vessel would never have been wrecked!”