Page:Anti-slavery and reform papers by Thoreau, Henry David.djvu/86

 A Plea for Captain John Brozun. 75 in talking or writing about this matter, unless he is con- tinuously inspired, and I have not done so. A man may have other affairs to attend to. I do not wish to kill norN/' to be killed, but I can foresee circumstances in which both these things would be by me unavoidable. We preserve the so-called peace of our community by deeds of petty violence every day. Look at the policeman's billy and handcuffs ! Look at the jail ! Look at the gallows ! Look at the chaplain of the regiment ! We are hoping only to live safely on the outskirts of this provisional army. So we defend ourselves and our hen- roosts, and maintain slavery. I know that the mass o£ my countrymen think that the only righteous use that can be made of Sharpens rifles and revolvers is to fight duels with them, when we are insulted by other nations, or to hunt Indians, or shoot fugitive slaves with them, or the like. I thi^k that for once the Sharpens rifles and the revolvers were employed in a righteous cause. The tools were in the hands of one who could use them.

The same indignation that is said to have cleared the temple once will clear it again. The question is not about the v/eapon, but the spirit in which you use it.

Xo man has appeared in America, as yet, who loved his fellow-man so well and treated him so tenderly. He lived for him. He took up his life and he laid it down for him. What sort of violence is that which is encour- aged, not by soldiers, but by peaceable citizens, not so much by laymen as by ministers of the Gospel, not so much by the fighting sects as by the Quakers, and not so^ much by Quaker men as by Quaker women ? This event advertises me that there is such a fact as death, — the possibility of a man^s dying. It seems as if