Christian rectitude? No nation exists which would go on slaughtering such a people. It is not in human nature to do such things; and I am persuaded not only that American independence would have been secured, but that very far fewer of the Americans would have been destroyed: that very much less of devastation and misery would have been occasioned if they had acted upon these principles instead of upon the vulgar system of exasperation and violence. In a word, they would have attained the same advantage with more virtue, and at less cost. With respect to those voluble reasoners who tell us of meanness of spirit, of pusillanimous submission, of base crouching before tyranny, and the like, it may be observed that they do not know what mental greatness is. Courage is not indicated most unequivocally by wearing swords, or by wielding them. Many who have courage enough to take up arms against a bad government, have not courage enough to resist it by the unbending firmness of the mind-to maintain a tranquil fidelity to virtue in opposition to power; or to endure with serenity the consequences which may follow.

The Reformation prospered more by the resolute noncompliance of its supporters, than if all of them had provided themselves with swords and pistols. The most severely persecuted body of Christians which this country has in later ages seen, was a body who never raised the arm of resistance. They wore out that iron rod of oppression which the attrition of violence might have whetted into a weapon that would have cut them off from the earth, and they now reap the fair fruit of their principles in the enjoyment of privileges from which others are still debarred.

There is one class of cases in which obedience is to be refused to the civil power without any view to an alteration of existing institutions-that is, when the

magistrate commands that which it would be immoral to obey. What is wrong for the Christian is wrong for the subject. "All human authority ceases at the point where obedience becomes criminal." Of this point of criminality every man must judge ultimately for himself; for the opinion of another ought not to make him obey when he thinks it is criminal, nor to refuse obedience when he thinks it is lawful. Some even appear to think that the nature of actions is altered by the command of the state; that what would be unlawful without its command is lawful with it. This notion is founded upon indistinct views of the extent of civil authority; for this authority can never be so great as that of the Deity, and it is the Deity who requires us not to do evil. The Protestant would not think himself obliged to obey if the state should require him to acknowledge the authority of the Pope; and why? Because he thinks it would be inconsistent with the Divine will; and this precisely is the reason why he should refuse obedience in other cases. He cannot rationally make distinctions, and say, "I ought to refuse obedience in acknowledging the Pope, but I ought to obey in becoming the agent of injustice or oppression." If I had been a Frenchman, and had been ordered, probably at the instigation of some courtezan, to immure a man, whom I knew to be innocent, in the Bastile, I should have refused; for it never can be right to be the active agent of such iniquity.

Under an enlightened and lenient government like our own, the cases are not numerous in which the Christian is exempted from the obligation to obedience. When, a century or two ago, persecuting acts were passed against some Christian communities, the members of these communities were not merely at liberty, they were required to disobey them. One act imposed a fine of twenty pounds a month for absenting one's

self from a prescribed form of worship. He who thought that form less acceptable to the Supreme Being than another, ought to absent himself notwithstanding the law. So, when in the present day, a Christian thinks the profession of arms, or the payment of preachers whom he disapproves, is wrong, he ought, notwithstanding any laws, to decline to pay the money or to bear the arms.

Illegal commands do not appear to carry any obligation to obedience. Thus, when the Apostles had been "beaten openly and uncondemned, being Romans,” they did not regard the directions of the magistracy to leave the prison, but asserted their right to legal justice, by making the magistrates "come themselves and fetch them out." When Charles I, made his demands of supplies upon his own illegal authority, I should have thought myself at liberty to refuse to pay them. This were not a disobedience to government. Government was broken. One of its constituent parts refused to impose the tax, and one imposed it. I might, indeed, have held myself in doubt whether Charles.constituted the government or not. If the people had thought it best to choose him alone for their ruler, he constituted the government, and his demand would have been legal; for a law is but the voice of that governing power whom the people prefer. As it was, the people did not choose such a government; the demand was illegal, and might therefore be refused.

CHAPTER IV.

POLITICAL INFLUENCE.

Effects of influence-Incongruity of public notions-Patronage -Dependency on the mother country.

THE system of governing by influence appears to be a substitute for the government of force-an intermediate step between awing by the sword and directing by reason and virtue. When the general character of political measures is such, that reason and virtue do not sufficiently support them to recommend them, on their own merits, to the public approbation—these measures must be rejected, or they must be supported by foreign means; and when, by the political institutions of a people, force is necessarily excluded, nothing remains but to have recourse to some species of influence. There is another ground upon which influence becomes, in a certain sense, necessary-which is, that there is so much imperfection of virtue in the majority of legislators-they are so much guided by interested or ambitious or party motives, that for a measure to be recommended by its own excellence, is sometimes not sufficient to procure their concurrence; and thus it happens that influence is resorted to, not merely because public measures are deficient in purity, but because there is a deficiency of uprightness in public

men.

The degree of this influence, which may be required to give stability to an executive body, (and therefore to a constitution,) will vary with the character of its own policy. The more widely that policy deviates from rectitude, the greater will be the demand for influence to induce concurrence in its measures. The degree of

influence that is actually exerted by a government, is therefore no despicable criterion of the excellence of its practice.

But let it be constantly borne in mind, that when we thus speak of the "necessity" for influence to support governments, we speak only of governments as they are, and of nations as they are. There is no necessity for influence to support good government over a good people. All influence but that which addresses itself to the judgment, is wrong-wrong in morals, and therefore indefensible upon whatever plea.

All influence but that which addresses itself to the judgment, is wrong." Of the moral offence which this influence implies, many are guilty who oppose governments, as well as those who support them, or as governments themselves. It is evidently not a whit more virtuous to exert influence in opposing governments than in supporting them: nor, indeed, is it so virtuous. To what is a man influenced? Obviously, to do that which, without the influence, he would not do;-that is to say, he is induced. to violate his judgment at the request or at the will of other men. It can need no argument to show that this is vicious. In truth, it is vicious in a very high degree; for to conform our conduct to our own sober judgment, is one of the first dictates of the moral law and the viciousness is so much the greater, because the express purpose for which a man is appointed to legislate, is that the community may have the benefit of his uninfluenced judgment. Breach of trust is added to the sacrifice of individual integrity. A nation can gain nothing by the knowledge or experience of a million of "influenced" legislators. It is curious, that the submission to influence which men often practise as legislators, they would abhor as judges. What should we say of a judge or a juryman who accepted a place or a promise as a bribe for an unjust sentence? We should prosecute the juryman and address the parliament for a removal of the judge. Is it then of so much less consequence in what manner affairs of state are conducted