Page:Anti-slavery and reform papers by Thoreau, Henry David.djvu/82

 A Plea for Captain John Brown. 7 1 do ycu assault me for? Am I not an honest man? Cease agitation on this subject, or I will make a slave of jou, too, or else hang you/^ V We talk about a representative government ; but what a monster of a government is that where the noblest > faculties of the mind, and the ivhole heart, are not 7'e- jyresentedTj A. semi- human tiger or ox, stalking over the earth, with its heart taken out and the top of its brain shot away. Heroes have fought well on their stumps when their legs were shot off, but I never heard of any good done by such a government as that.

XThe onlv ofovernment that I recoo^nize, — and it matters not how few are at the head of it, or how small its army, —IS that power that establishes justice in the land, never that which establishes iujustice. What shall we think of a government to which all the truly brave and just men in the land are enemies, standing between it and those whom it oppresses ? A government that pre- tends to be Christian and crucifies a million Christs.

every day ! ^ Treason ! "Where does such treason take its rise ? I cannot help thinking of you as you deserve, ye govern- ments. Can you dry up the fountains of thought ? High treason, when it is resistance to tyranny here below, has its origin in, and is first committed by, the power that makes and forever recreates man. AVhen you have caught and hung all these human rebels, you have ac- complished nothing but your own guilt, for you have not struck at the fountain-head. You presume to contend with a foe against whom West Point cadets and rifled csLUuon jyoint not. Can all the art of the cannon-founder tempt matter to turn against its maker ? Is the form in