--i~j::~~:~:
IILFC'IE/L.
Q5e5


WHAT IS FREEDOM?


AND.I


WHEN AM I FREE?




BEING AN ATTEMPT TO PUT LIBERTY ON A
RATIONAL BASIS,


AND WREST ITS KEEPING FROM IRRESPONSIBLE
PRETENDERS IN CHURCH AND STATE.
BY
HENRY APPLETON,
PROVIDENCE, R. I.
Secon  Etbition.
BOSTON, MASS.:
BENJ. R. TUCKER, PUBLISHER.
1886.


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WHAT IS FREEDOM?
SOCRATES is said to have replied to a friend who congratulated him on his wisdom: " I am wiser than other men because I know that I know nothing: other men do not know this."
We do not know what freedom is, because we have never experienced it.  Max Miller, who has handled dictionaries more
diligently, perhaps, than any other man living, depreciates the
English habit of being satisfied with mere definitions, contrasting it with the more profound mental training of Germany.  If
we should consult Webster or Blackstone or Mill or Hegel for
a definition in words, it would only be shifting the question without answering it. A definition, which is simply an equation in
words, can only be perfect when it contains every effectuating
factor of the problem. We once heard a school-boy at an examination define a potato as an esculent plant; but both he and the
pretty school-mistress were thoroughly demoralized when a " stupid old German" on the committee wanted to know what an esculent plant was. The potato equation, when hard pushed, had
no alternative but to roll over and expire on the pert lips of its
mistress: "Why! an esculent plant is a potato, of course! "
Plato fixed his place as " the school-master of the ages " through
his matchless dexterity in overthrowing such opinions of his
pupils as they paraded about, snugly bound in high-sounding
phrases.  The insolent and conceited Alcibiades comes into
the presence of Socrates, prepared, with brazen self-assurance,
to define goodness, justice, and virtue, only to discover, in his
galling discomfiture, that he knows nothing about these subjects,
- does not even know his own opinions.
Some philosopher had the curiosity to approach a wretched
Lazzarone in Naples, and ask: " What is your idea of freedom?"
" What is freedom, sir! Freedom is free macaroni," was the
ready response. Everywhere we find the search after freedom
obscured by some prospective object to be gained. Tell women
they are prostituted slaves, robbed of their individuality, right
of suffrage, scope for development, etc., and if they happen to be
sumptuously kept, most of them reply: " I have all the freedom I




I


2                    What is Freedom?
want." They are virtually on the same plane as the Lazzarone.
Freedom with such ladies generally means elegant wardrobes,
fine mansions, and admission into gilt-edged society. But the
analysis of freedom as a condition, induced through the analogies
of Nature, is an abstraction, having little temptation for the average mind. Yet freedom, or its synonyme, liberty, has ever been
the theme of poets, the watchword of patriots, and the hope of
every people.
Did it ever occur to the reader why the ordinary similes which
we use to express a condition of freedom are gathered from fluids?
We say: "His money is as free as water;" "I feel as free as
the mountain air;" "the free meanderings of the woodland
stream." Yet science teaches us that the air is just as severely
bound by natural law as is the iron buried under a mountain.
There is no absolute freedom in Nature. It would seem that
whatever is associated with motion and spontaneity is always
suggestive of it. Fluids are flexible. Their particles are so feebly
attracted that they are easily affected by external forces. They
seek their own level, and will find it, if not interfered with. Some
mountain stream, rolling down the Sierras, will inspire a poet or
patriot with the genius of liberty; but, as soon as you interpose
the miller's dam, he turns away.
Certain chemical elements, we are told, have an affinity for
each other.  If another element be brought in contact with
those already united, and one of the elements have a greater affinity for it than for the one with which it is already united, it
will combine with the new element, and its old affinity is "set
free."  Not imprisoned for adultery; not expelled from  the
Creator's laboratory; not banished from the best chemical families, - but set free to go whither it will, and unite in accordance
with its highest law. When, therefore, we say "free as the elements," we say something more beautiful than we realize. The
elements, left to the operation of their own laws, work out their
highest destiny. Whether it be natural selection, chemical affinity, equilibrium, or any other term of science, no matter where
we turn in the book of Nature, the lesson will always point to
the great trinity of her economy, - motion, spontaneity, growth.
Things seem to be freest in Nature when no artificial arrangement is interposed to prevent their association in the manner
most conducive to their growth and most in harmony with the
conditions of their being. If this be so, it will apply to man and
to society. Man is the cosmos in miniature. Society has been
his greatest curse in one respect. It has coaxed him into selling
his individuality, and burying it in collectivity. As soon as a
man is prompted to follow some wholesome law of growth, his
neighbor stands ready with the warning: "But you must not
forget that you are a member of society; you do not own your



-b.
What is Freedom                  3 3
self; society owns you."  This is the most fatal heresy that ever
seduced the race. Human progress never will begin in earnest
till every man is taught to feel his own divinity. The Almighty
never was known to sacrifice the most insignificant law of Nature, even in the interest of the whole universe. The universe
is made up of a series of organisms, and the evident plan of its
economy is that each shall fulfil its destiny in accordance with
its conditions. Every man and woman is a distinct organism.
His or her duty is to study the conditions and elements best fitted
for the development of its best possibilities. Such forces and
elements will naturally gravitate to it, just as material substances
naturally associate for their most perfect development. Despotism begins when artificial and conventional interposition usurps
the place of Nature, - when one organism assumes to provide
for the wants of another, and dictate conditions for it.
When we conform to the conditions of our physical organism,
we are blessed with what we call health. We feel freest when
we feel healthiest. Did you ever seem freer than when you had
just finished a morning sea-bath? When you breathe the vitalizing air of the ocean, and the blood courses nimbly through
your veins, how naturally do you exclaim: " I feel as light and
free as a bird!" On the other hand, when do you feel so much
like a slave as when you sit in the solitude of an ill-ventilated
room, a victim to the poisonous drugs of your doctor? An artificial invasion upon the methods of Nature in restoring your bodily functions is an invasion on your physiological freedom. If
you are spiritually ill, you go to the glens or mountains, or to the
sea-shore. The carol of the birds; the tinkling of the mountain
rills; the great bosom of old ocean,-divert and neutralize the
bitter currents of your soul. You finally say: " I have freed my
spirit of its bitterness; now I feel freer to go among my friends
again." But suppose, on the other hand, that through a false
early education, or through fear of hell or of the devil, you go
within the dismal walls of some Calvinistic church. A spiritual
quack doctor, in sombre garb, with a voice as from the tomb, solemnly opens a ponderous book, and tells you "there shall be weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth." While presenting the
"gospel of light," this theological ghoul systematically dams up
every channel of freshness and cheer in your nature. What has
he really done? He has invaded your soul's freedom. He has
drugged your natural organs of spiritual recuperation. Because
he has seduced you into his gospel shop through your own want
of enlightenment, he is none the less a tyrant over you. He has
prevented you from being free, - that is, from working out your
salvation in the manner which Nature has provided and adapted
especially to you.
A state of freedom, then, would seem to be a state of health,




4


What is Freedom?


-a condition of normal functional activity, either in the individual or in society. As the air you breathe, composed of oxygen,
nitrogen, and carbonic acid gas, is free and elastic through the
impossibility of its being imprisoned and dammed up by the innovations of men, so your soul, composed of conscience, reason,
and love, would also be free, were it not unfortunately in the
power of your fellows to interpose arbitrary barriers to the consummation of its natural destiny. Why is the mountain air
wholesome and vivifying?  Because it is free.  Why is the
ocean invigorating and vitalizing? Because it is free. Why is
the air of your cities pestilential and impairing? Because it is
poisoned by commercial greed, and confined by the avarice of
rent-hounds. Why does the mill-stream dispense noxious vapors? Because the spoliator of laborers behind the mill-wheel
can meddle with its free meanderings.
Supposing you to be an intelligent man or woman, who had
watched and studied your own physical organization, and felt
yourself to be in a condition of perfect bodily freedom (health),
how would you feel if you were impertinently accosted on some
beautiful Spring morning by a self-constituted functionary, who
should say: -
" My dear sir, you seem to be feeling pretty well, but I tell you,
you are sick; now I am called, or elected, to be your doctor; you
must take my medicines, which the law directs me to administer. You, in your conceit, think you are healthy; but you, as
an individual, are of no account. You belong to society, which,
by the sacred authority of the ballot-box, has made me your physical adviser. You, in common with your fellow-republicans,
have taxed yourself to support me in my healing office; and
now, I, in obedience to my oath, am called upon to offer you a
dose of government pills, which, as you see, are duly stamped
with the seal of this great and free commonwealth. If you take
them like a loyal, law-abiding citizen, it shall be well with you;
but if you refuse, my brother doctors of the judiciary, whom you
have also elected, will feel themselves obliged to administer the
more salutary dose of penitentiary tea, which I can assure you
will not fail to bring you to terms "?
Would you not retort, in fierce indignation--
"But who made you, audacious intruder, the judge of my
health? Do I not know when my bodily functions work freely?
Away with you and your pills! I can take care of myself "?
Yet, my friend, you are already committed. Your State or
Congressional doctor has only to reply:"Was it not you, sir, whom I saw wire-pulling at the primary
convention? Was it not you, sir, whom I heard howling to an
excited rabble on the eve of election about the sacred right of
sffrage? Well do I recollect how, amid thunders of bellowing




What is Freedom?


5


applause, you finished your speech with these last words, making
night hideous with your noise: -' Unless the doctor and his party
are elected, the country is lost!' "
I submit that this is a fair sketch of the general nature of government. With immense expense of money and patriotism we
elect governments to tell us when we are sick. Government is
predicated on the assumption that we are all sick, just as popular theology is predicated on the assumption that we are all by
nature helpless and depraved. Like some coquettish female who
loves to be sick occasionally that she may allure the caresses
of her lover, or be fondled by a handsome young physician, we
sovereign republicans delight in being sick from the immense
satisfaction we have in being doctored. How thoroughly we are
doctored is evident in the startling reports of national, state, and
municipal indebtedness which come to us, and in the shameless
prostitution of justice which is everywhere thrust before our
eyes.
The case is the same in theology. Presumptuous doctors of
divinity insist upon it that your soul is sick. In vain do you
protest that your soul is feeling tolerably well; you try to be
upright, honest, and conscientious in your dealings with your
fellow-men; you strive to be generous and charitable, and live
up to your highest convictions of right. But nothing will do.
These ill-mannered intruders are determined to tear your soul
from your own keeping. They still insist upon it that you are
sick, and must be doctored, or refuse at your eternal peril. Yet,
proud voter, when you call them to account, your case is compromised at the outset. They may reply:"Do you not boast of your sacred prerogative of taking part,
and having a sovereign voice, in the election of the executives of
a government which taxes you to support me and my church?
Do you not make our office remunerative and eminently respectable by holding it fanatical and treasonable for your neighbor to
refuse to be taxed for the support of sectarian schools, into which
the bible of a caste religion is thrust, and which are controlled
by our caste clergy? Why do you complain of religious and legislative doctors, when the very basis of your free government
is founded on the theory that all men are born socially and morally sick? If you do not wish to be put on the sick-list against
your will, then be consistent, and unmake or remodel the whole
swindle. The fault is yours, not ours."
It is a poor compliment to republican logic that a man in private life will often repel an inroad upon his personal liberty with
indignation, while he fosters and loves with patriotic devotion a
government which does the same thing with impunity. Waiting
in a barber's shop some time ago, I listened to a very suggestive




6


What is Freedom?


dialogue between a Judge of one of our higher courts in Rhode
Island, and a Baptist deacon. It was in this wise:--
Deacon. "Judge, I did not see you yesterday at our church.
We had an excellent sermon by the Rev. Dr. R."
'udge. " No, Deacon, I was somewhat overworked last week,
and so I went on the Sunday excursion to get a little snuff of the
sea-breeze."
Deacon. "Judge, I am very sorry to see a man holding your
position give countenance to advertised Sabbath-breaking by his
presence."
Judge. "Oh, well, Deacon, I don't think these Sunday steamboat excursions do any harm. You know thousands of operatives, shut up in mills, have no time but Sundays to get a little
air and sunlight. There was no liquor allowed on board, and
every thing was quiet and orderly. I rather think some of those
poor fellows were as well off as if they had been crowded into an
ill-ventilated church. As for myself, I don't recollect of sinning
any."
Deacon. "But, Judge, you know we are commanded to keep
the Sabbath as a day of rest, if nothing more."
Yudge. " Well, Deacon, it may rest you on a hot day to sit
and listen to a dry, long-winded sermon, but for me it would be
the hardest work you could put me to."
Deacon. " Judge, I am shocked to hear a man of your standing talk so slightingly of the concerns of your soul."
Yudge (a little piqued). "Deacon, you and I would never
get anywhere arguing these points. What I want to know is:
Who are you that you should presume to decide for me what is
rest and what is labor, either on Sunday or any other day?"
And so this little duel of words ended. The Judge had evidently struck at the root of the matter with one blow. Yet, if
on that very day the steamboat company on whose boat he sailed
had been indicted for Sabbath-breaking, he would have been
bound by the laws of Rhode Island to convict it on the very
grounds for which he called the deacon to account. If the deacon
has no right to decide what is rest and what is labor for his neighbor on the Sabbath, who are you, Your Honor, I ask, that you
should do that very thing on a bench, dedicated to justice itself,
in the name of the State? Do the eternal principles of right
and wrong become inverted to suit your case, simply because you
are backed by prisons and police and a posse of political scoundrels? Verily, the average American is sick when he speaks
with feelings akin to reverence of the terrors and sanctity of the
law, and yet would be tempted to rudely upbraid his own mother
for the kind of interference with his personal liberty which a
drunken New York judge can practise with impunity.
So, then, perhaps we ought not to be too severe on the doc



What is Freedom.?


7


tors. They are but the creatures of a society which is determined to be sick. A young medical assistant told me that he
once received a terrible reprimand from his superior. He had
been called suddenly to the bedside of a lackadaisical female to
find that nothing was the matter with her but a natural scarcity
of brains. On returning to the office he told the senior medicus
that he had repaired to the lady's side in great haste only to find
that she was well enough, - had told her so, and come away.
"What!" said the doctor in great anger, as he opened a large
book to debit a three-dollar fee; "at that rate you will soon
kill off the cream of my practice. Never do that again!" In
the days of Athens and Sparta it used to be a disgrace to be sick.
Even the untutored savage of the American forest felt degraded
to the core when he could no longer bear the tomahawk and the
bow. Frederick the Great refused to submit to the humiliation
of dying on a sick bed, and expired sitting erect in an iron chair
with his faithful dogs beside him. One of Napoleon's officers
refused to dismount from his horse when his leg was shot off
above the knee; and the surgeons amputated the limb, while
he sat in the saddle so quietly as not to start his faithful steed.
But the age of physical hardihood has given way to that of moral
hardihood. As Mr. Taine has it: " Those great moral giants of
Cromwell's time have gone, never to return." It is now a proud
mark of honor and wisdom to be politically, religiously, and socially'sick, that we may boast of a royal pageant of priests, presidents, legal hierarchs, and Grundies. Nor are these functionaries
necessary to restrain the ignorant and uncultivated alone. They
are fed and flattered and kept for the benefit of the wise and 6lite.
I think it was in a number of the old "Penny Magazine " that
I read the following amusing anecdote. An audacious quack
had come to London, and by dint of loud advertising and lying
had stirred up an immense furore among the lame, the halt, and
the blind of the metropolis. So great and persistent was the
rush to his office, night and day, that the income of the most
eminent professionals began to be affected by it. Finally the
King's physician, as spokesman for the others, addressed a letter
to the " London Times," denouncing the shameless intruder in
the most scathing terms, and ended by saying that he was a
most outrageous quack, and that "none but knaves and fools
would patronize him in the future." The next morning the royal
physician was surprised to find a most courteous reply to his
fierce philippic. It thanked him most heartily for his gracious
condescension in greeting a new brother with so eminent a notice through the public press; and after the cleverest manipulation of the adversary's insult, it concluded: "But, dear brother,
I would not have you kill yourself with kindness: for should
you really be so generous as to retain none but wise men, and




8


What is Freedom.


leave all the knaves and fools for me, no one better knows than
yourself that I should soon absorb the entire practice of London."
If, then, a state of sickness be preferable to a state of health,
then is a state of slavery preferable to a state of freedom. Christianity is responsible for the most irrational and pernicious sophism that ever cursed civilization, -namely, that we are all by
nature sinful and depraved; or, as the couplet runs:--
"In Adam's sin
We all jined in."
Its effect is seen in every phase of social history, present and
past. The earliest lesson that a child receives is that all men
are natural robbers, who, if left to their native ways, will certainly pillage him. Hence he must prepare himself, tooth and
nail, for what is called "the great struggle of life."  The first
Sunday-school lesson teaches him that Adam entailed the curse
of sin upon all succeeding generations, until poor Christ was
sandwiched in to be the scapegoat of the whole perverse gang.
Hence, if nothing be known to the contrary, your neighbor is
a villain. Keep a sharp eye on him, or he will plunder you.
From this logic come such beautiful Americanisms as "Look
out for number one;" "Never trust to appearances;" and others.
They even tell us that this is a part of the government of God.
Cain was sent out of the presence of the Lord to dwell in the
land of Nod, or Nad, which signifies a vagabond; for God intended that, because of the sin of Cain, all who henceforth settled in that city should be called vagabonds. A pious historian,
in speaking of the city of Nad as the first which was founded in
the world, remarks solemnly: "Like all places which are the
resort of vagabonds, the city increased rapidly in wealth and
population; for nearly all of Adam's children were of that class."
So too, if one of our merchants is proven to be a cheat or defaulter, the antagonistic classes declare that all business men are
knaves. After the operations of John Law, nearly every man
engaged in large operations, however legitimate, was watched
like a thief. If a dark mystery occur in connection with Masonry, a grand anti-masonic rage is born, and every Free Mason
is for a time a villain. If a vicious Methodist parson commit an
outrage on chastity, straightway the more vulgar class of infidels denounce all clergymen as scoundrels and impostors. If a
bloody murder occur in England, every Englishman fancies the
man at his shoulder to be a murderer. Thomas DeQuincey, in
his thrilling story of "Three Notable Murders," says that, after
the terrible deed of John Wilson in 1812, England was thrown
into a fearful fever of suspicion and fear, and everybody fancied he
saw the brand of Cain on his neighbor. " I myself," he says, "was
three thousand miles away from London, but there and every



What is Freedom?


9


where the panic was indescribable. My next neighbor, a lady,
refused to retire till she had carefully barricaded eighteen doors,
and access to her was nearly as difficult as to a feudal baroness
of the Middle Ages." " The panic was not confined to the rich;
women in the humblest ranks more than once died on the spot
from the shock attending some suspicious intruder, with no worse
intent perhaps than simple larceny." So late as 1862, because of
a few bold cases of "garroting," the streets of London were
nearly deserted at night for weeks after, and representatives of
the first respectability of the metropolis were rudely arrested on
the strength of some fancied peculiarity of look or manner. In
the late trials of spiritualism the same proneness to belief in universal depravity is manifest. Detect some low-bred medium in
fraud, or supplement some dexterous feat of legerdemain to explain an alleged spiritual phenomenon, and for purposes of persecution you have made out a case against all the mediums in
the world.  The cry is everywhere raised: "I told you so!
They are all a set of rogues and impostors."
Thus the wicked, blighting doctrine that we are all by nature
perverse and depraved has shaped the course of history. If tyrants and meddlers had been simply content to enunciate the
proposition, and leave the pursuit of health and salvation to the
victims, it would have been comparatively harmless. But this
inhuman premise developed a tragic logic, which in its execution
has ground and goaded a host of martyrs, and poisoned and
choked the native springs of growth and civilization for ages.
The plunderers of human liberty on thrones and benches, in
pulpits and parlors, have always assumed that, granting you to
be sick, they are the anointed and divinely appointed keepers of
your health. It is for taking issue with this brazen assumption
that political invalids have been dragged into racks and dungeons.  It is for questioning this pretended prerogative that
men and women are ostracised from respectable society, and
branded as licentious anarchists. 'Reformers, least of all, claim
that society is any thing like healthy and perfect. In fact, their
very calling arises out of an imperfect state of society. But
what they have generally rebelled against is the abortive and
poisoning doings of arbitrary practitioners in Church, State,
and society. John Hampden did not deny that money was the
only tonic that could brace up the rotten constitution of Charles
I. What he put his foot upon was the despotic manner of collecting it.
But whether you deny the title- of your political doctors, the
efficacy of their nostrums, or the wisdom of their methods of administering them, you are equally a rebel and a fanatic, provided
they are constitutionally created. And what gives this momentous word constitutional its awful sanctity? Is one any the more




What is Freedom?


virtuous because constitutionally a thief? Is one any happier
because constitutionally bilious? Was chattel slavery any the
less iniquitous because it was constitutional in this country?
There is nothing so diabolical in the whole catalogue of human
crimes but that it is, or has been at some time, constitutional.
The Constitution of a government is but the reflection of the average moral constitution of its framers, and statute laws are simple ramifications from the parent trunk. If our fathers had been
Mahometans, we should have been to-day constitutional polygamists; had they been Parsees, we should have been constitutional fire-worshippers; and had they been children of Beelzebub,
we should all have been constitutional devils and hell-hounds. Is
it not as evident as daylight that constitutions can carry no moral
weight perse; and what are laws but simply the written opinions
of fallible men? The American Constitution of 1788 is the result of the associated wisdom of its framers, with the best helps
that were then available. But the best wisdom of 1788 in many
departments of thought has become foolishness in 1878. Why
should legislative wisdom alone be so immutable? The terms
of our Constitution, like all others, rest on their merits. Professor Maine, in his learned work on "Ancient Law," speaking of
Thomas Jefferson's " self-evident" truth as embodied in the Declaration of Independence, "All men are born free and equal,"
says it was simply a "semi-popular" French opinion, which
Thomas had imbibed by contact with French infidels and jurists.
Among Constitutional lawyers opinions differ widely as to the
sanctity and safety of our Constitution. In one of the latest
letters of Macaulay, written to Mr. Randall the biographer of
Jefferson, he expressed the opinion that against the issues which
must yet rise in this country it would prove a useless bulwark.
" Your Constitution is all sail, and no anchor," he says. A Constitution has often been but the cunning device of a tyrant to
check the progress of opiniorj among a plundered people. An
ancient writer truly says, in reference to the popular assemblies
of Athens, that, "if every Athenian were a Socrates, every
Athenian assembly would be a mob." That freedom of opinion
and criticism which belongs to a true democracy is very dangerous to Constitutions: so pretenders have often found it convenient and safe to compile their own schemes into codes, in order
to hide them from the inspection of those whom they had defrauded and plundered. The same trick is played by theologians, who compile their own base interests into creeds, and
palm them off on credulous humanity as the laws of God. When
I first studied English history at school, I was told by my teacher
that, although the Romans conquered the Britons, captured their
heroic queen, and treated them with great cruelty, they nevertheless made their plunder good by giving them wise laws and




What is Freedom?


II


a taste of their civilization. With great show of equity I was
told that, although the Romans were quite famous for that kind
of thing, they always healed the ghastly wound of conquest by
leaving a good dose of law in the medicine chests of their legions,
to be administered constitutionally. I somehow took in the idea
that no matter how great the outrage, if it were only done according to the forms of law, it was all right; and I fear that to-day
this is the most pitiable form of dupery which is practised upon
our American boys. What if Charlemagne did pillage and perpetrate the most heart-rending cruelty on the poor Saxonrs?
What if he did, with one hand on the cross and the other on
the rack, attempt to torture the plundered Saxon princes into
Christianity? He left them constitutions and laws, which entitles him to go down into history with the choice few who have
been surnamed the Great.
But the law-abiding American will say: " Leaving out the sanctity and infallibility of Constitutions, we must have something
to anchor to; if everybody were to construe his duty according
to his own opinion or bias, we should soon be all afloat; or, as
Mr. Macaulay has it, "all sail and no anchor." But, dutiful
citizen, will you anchor to words? Ancient Rome and many of
the Grecian republics had Constitutions; but they proved no
anchor when slavery and vice had fastened upon them. Nowhere in Gibbon's classic post mortem of the Roman empire
does he ascribe its fall to the want of a firm Constitution. The
Romans were the fathers of laws and Constitutions; yet what
kind of anchors did they prove when finally the poor they had
always with them, and the rich, were steeped in luxury and debauchery?  Poland had once a Constitution; but what did it
avail her when three royal thieves saw fit, with one stroke of the
pen, to wipe out her nationality? It is said that Maria Theresa,
in whom some of the instincts of a woman's heart yet remained,
wept as she signed that murderous decree; and undoubtedly,
truer to her country than to her heart, she wept constitutionally.
Prussia, the most intelligent kingdom of Europe to-day, is a
so-called constitutional monarchy; yet, for notions of freedom
which would be accounted conservative in this country, some of
her noblest sons have spent the greater part of their lives in
prisons. The Constitution is for the people, who vote majesty
some four million dollars of pocket-money per annum, while in
her great, proud capital poor market women may be seen harnessed into wagons with dogs. When the letter of the Constitution does not suit the purposes of royalty, it is easily evaded.
The late war with Austria was unpopular with the people. According to the Constitution Bismarck could not raise the money
for carrying it on, except by a vote of Parliament. When finally
the Parliament refused to vote the supplies, the Premier simply




What is Freedom


smiled, borrowed the money of private bankers, led the lawabiding sons of Prussia to slaughter, and charged the bill to the
nation. What could the people say, under their dear Constitution, surrounded by a standing army of nearly a million men,
every one of whom had virtually sworn to shoot down his own
mother, if need be, in obedience to superiors. In the royal University at Berlin, the only place where freedom of speech is
tolerated, I heard a learned professor say that Prussia was a constitutional monarchy only in name, but not in the spirit and
intent of liberty.
Great Britain is the perfection of a constitutional monarchy;
yet the very fact that her Constitution is unwritten proves what
has been stated,-that a constitution is a variable product of
the average enlightenment of a people. Englishmen will not
submit to constitutional injustice any sooner than to any other
species. By the Constitution of Great Britain to-day the Queen
has an absolute veto over any act of Parliament. Every child
knows well enough why it is never exercised. Bismarck and his
despotism would soon be stamped beneath English soil without
consulting the Constitution. Attempt any flagrant violation of
the liberty of the people, and you will soon see what they anchor
to. They anchor to justice and the fruits of those great struggles which have cost the lives and liberties of so many of her
sons.
And what has England, this prodigy of constitutional law,
really done for the average humanity that makes up her population? Many of her sons can recollect when one hundred and
fifty-four nabobs sent three hundred and seven members to Parliament, when seats in that body were sold like common merchandise, and when bribery and corruption were everywhere
the order of the day. In this law-thriving England, one man
out of every ten is a pauper. John Ruskin calls her a nation of
thieves. Carlyle despairs. Froude says that thieving and dishonesty seem to increase in a direct ratio with clergymen and
law-givers. It really seems as though a nation so rich in constitutional doctors and political medicines ought to have accomplished more for the social and spiritual well-being of her
children.
Strange to say, no people cling so superstitiously to their Constitution as do the Americans. When the clanking of the chains
of slavery was ringing in the conscience of every humane man
in the North, and the insatiable monster threatened to swallow
the continent unless exterminated, the cry went up: " The Constitution must and shall be preserved!"  Honor might go; humiliation might come; no boon could atone for the sacrifice of
the Constitution. Even Charles Sumner, standing between the
slave and the auction-block of souls, stickled with pitiable equiv



What is Freedom?


13


ocation for a man-stealing parchment. The few who tried, " The
Right must and shall be preserved," and would be heard, were
branded as seditious fanatics. Yet finally the Constitution was
swapped off for another humbug, the Union; and Lincoln's proclamation, backed by victorious arms, blotted out one form of
American slavery for ever. Now, when the narrow bias of sectional animus has ceased, no thoughtful man will for a moment
deny that a forced Union is a direct rape on the Constitution,
and subversive of its whole spirit and intent; else why did the
Government shyly dodge the issue of trying Jefferson Davis "for
treason? There is not an eminent lawyer in the country who
does not know that the denial of the right of a State to secede, under the Constitution, could never stand before the Supreme Court. Again, the various measures for raising money
and credit for carrying on the struggle were admitted to be unconstitutional, and only excusable as war measures. Yet, ten
years after the war has ceased, the National Banking act, unconstitutional in itself, and a wicked scheme of plunder to fatten
bond-holders at the expense of the people, is still fastened upon
the honest labor and industry of the country with double security. Such is our vaunted Constitution, which was preserved
by so terrible a sacrifice of blood and treasure, and in the centennial year of our nation rewards you by lacking strength enough
to elect a chief magistrate of its subjects.
But, allowing all that is claimed for it, we now come to the
vital question at issue, as it affects freedom. By what right
do you presume to force that Constitution upon me? Granting
it to be a safe and satisfying anchorage for you, why should I be
compelled to adopt it? I have never signed it; I had no voice
in its making; I may never have read it, - yet I am bound to it
by the penalties of treason. If you and I go fishing in separate
boats, or if we become " fishers of men " in separate bodies, you
may anchor where you choose. If you are on good ground, and
catch all the big fish, well and good. But as soon as you attempt
to compel me to anchor on the same ground, I say: " Let me
alone! I am satisfied where I am; the tide may turn by and by;
but, whether it does or not, I deny your right to coerce me; I
can paddle my own canoe."  But your agents, the sheriffs and
judges and policemen, say: " No; you have no right to cast anchor on any save constitutional ground. Your assumption that
you have a right to catch fish as you will, and where you will, at
your own cost, is treasonable. We have staked off a certain portion of God's earth and water for you to fish in, and, unless you
obey without many words, we will 'haul you up' for repairs."
Now my masters, in these arbitrary proceedings, assume a very
grave responsibility. If I submit, they ought, in all reason and
justice, to render strict account to me for such direct invasion of




24


What is Freedom t


my personal liberty. But who ever apologized to you for saddling a Constitution upon you which was made before you were
born? Who ever asked you to read the document, and say
whether you were willing to subscribe to it? Did the men who
made it ask any one to subscribe to it, except those who were
then willing to? The State of Rhode Island, in which I live,
refused to take part in making that document. They did not
want it. Finally, two men who did not represent the State or its
wishes reluctantly signed it at the eleventh hour. Why should
I, then, nearly a century afterwards, be bound by it?  Some
may think this a foolish question; but we are now dealing with
essential right, and not with conditional and artificial right. It
was thought a foolish question when the colonists asked: " Why
should we be taxed without our consent?" and Dr. Samuel Johnson, the oracle of his time, wrqte a learned pamphlet to prove
that taxation without representation was no tyranny. When my
parents used to coerce me, they generally had the humanity to
explain why I ought to obey. They knew that, if I did not obey
in spirit, I did not obey at all; hence, if not always on the right
end of a thrashing, the moral and conventional grounds of their
right to compel were explained. But I do not recollect that
they ever cited any of the household regulations of my greatgrandfather as binding upon me. Henry Ward Beecher once
forcibly illustrated the ridiculousness of shaping one's religious
life by a printed liturgy by comparing it to a young man who
should attempt to woo his beloved by reading to her his grandmother's love-letters. The very fact of the antiquity of a code,
which is the greatest argument against its title to bind the present generation, seems to make it all the more plausible with most
of us. On the Continent of Europe jurists boast of tracing their
laws far back into Roman society, and speak slightingly of the
English Common Law, which often can trace its pedigree no
farther back than to some bloody Norman pirate. So we speak
of the sacred Constitution of our fathers just as though they were
less liable to err than the same number of men who might be
brought together to-day. But (to their credit be it said) they
never even left the request on record that we should be bound
by their arrangement, while we, after nearly a century of prog
ress, retain a chronic fear of reformers and new ideas, slinking
back at every crisis behind their continental wigs and lappels.
But my republican neighbors will reply: " You misrepresent:
there are ample provisions for amending the Constitution to suit
the requirements of modern progress." And here we shall be
forced back one step farther towards the main issue, and have to
ask: Yet, after all, what right have you to force the Constitution on me, as amended, provided I have no voice in amending it? You have not answered the main question at all. I




What is Freedom 1


IS


admit it was not the gracious gift of an individual tyrant. It
was the gift of a tyrant more invulnerable than any one man.
It was the legacy of the collective tyrant, Majority.  If his
Royal Highness, Majority, choose to amend the instrument, I,
the plundered victim, Minority, am none the better off. I still
hurl back the original question at your throne: Who gave you
the divine right to make me your slave? Despotism is despotism; by changing the name of the despot you do not change the
essential act. I still insist on holding you to the previous question. Show me your title in equity. That title has never been
shown, nor do writers on State polity pretend that it would have
any validity in justice if one were hatched up. They simply
start on the assumption that despotism must in the nature of
things exist. When the whole odium is concentrated upon one
man, he is a target for all the victims, and may fall; therefore,
if you divide the outrage among a great number, no individual
can easily be seized upon as responsible, and your despotism will
stand. A gentleman was recently explaining the equitable arrangement for counting the electoral votes by this same sublime
logic. " You see," he says, "that, if any one man should count
Hayes in under the circumstances, it would no doubt be arbitrary; the responsibility would be too great, and the people
would not stand it. Now, by dividing the responsibility, and so
balloting that no one will know by whose vote he is elected,
Hayes may be counted in equitably, and everybody will be satisfied."  Is that not prodigious reasoning? After admitting
that Hayes was not even the choice of a majority of the people,
-that, if one man should count him in, it would be arbitrary
and unjust, - my friend, with marvellous hardihood, goes on to
say in substance that, if you can only hide that same man in the
crowd, the same act becomes just and equitable. By this logic,
the thief who takes your pocket-book is not a thief, if he can only
disguise himself in a crowd. Yet our boasted institutions rest
on no better basis than this. A majority can constitutionally
enforce the enactments of Charles I. on the minority, - in fact,
some of them are actually on the statute-book to-day. When
that is done, is the majority any better than he? According to
my friend's logic, the majority is a just ruler because you cannot cut its head off. To those who would ask the vulgar question:
"Would you then go back to Rousseau's state of Nature and anarchy?" I answer: No! I would go forward to a state of justice
and individual dignity. It is not even necessary to deny Mr. Emerson's proposition that society is always as near perfection as is
compatible with the conditions. Where we stand on dangerous ground is in taking for granted the essential virtue of political assumptions, simply because our institutions happen to be
built upon them. What is true in theory will yet be boiled




16. What is Freedom?


down to practice, if so-called fanatics only keep stirring up the
pot. The great danger to republicans is that shallow conceit
which imagines that we are now on the "home stretch" for the
millennium, if we can only frighten off the galling whips of incendiary reformers.
John Stuart Mill, in his "Essay on Liberty," says: "Let us
suppose that the Government is entirely at one with the people,
and never thinks of exercising any power of coercion, unless in
agreement with what it conceives to be their voice. But I deny
the right of the people to exercise such coercion, either by themselves or by their Government. The power itself is illegitimate.
The best Government has no more title to it than the worst. It
is as noxious, or more noxious, when exerted in accordance with
public opinion than when in opposition to it. If all mankind,
minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the
contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."  Very good, Mr. Mill; let us try
your rule, and see how long we can keep out of prison. I hold,
for instance, the solemn conviction that the Legislature of Massachusetts has no authority over me; that I am my own natural
keeper; and that to submit to its taxes and domination is a violation of my conscience. Moreover, I hold the still more sacred
opinion that a man ought to live up to his convictions. Suppose
I should go upon Boston Common, herald my opinion to a large
audience, and attempt by all possible means to win converts.
How long before a very insignificant portion of mankind would
seize me by the collar and silence me? My freedom of expression, then, goes just as far as society is disposed to let it. If it
be a harmless, abstract notion, with a weak power behind it, let
it go; but as soon as I hold a law of the State to be stupid and
arbitrary, and in all consistency advise my neighbors, with myself, not to obey it, then it becomes treasonable, and the prisondoor stands open to silence me. Sitting in.a large beer-house in
Germany, amidst the clatter of a thousand voices, a citizen, having occasion to pass some sharp criticism on the Government,
whispered carefully in my ear, with an anxious lookout for informers. " Do you not enjoy liberty of speech in this country?"
I said. " Oh, yes!" was the reply; " the Constitution grants to
every man freedom of speech; only, when one criticises the
Government loudly, he must do it in his own apartments, and
not publicly."  That is delicious freedom. One has perfect liberty to express his opinions of his rulers, with the gracious qualification that he must do it where nobody can hear him. Our
own vaunted "free speech" is only a modification of the same
principle.
Blackstone, in his " Commentaries " (80o6), says that "among




What is Freedom.


I7


the variety of actions which men are liable daily to commit in
England, no less than one hundred and sixty are declared by act
of Parliament to be felonies, without benefit of clergy; or, in
other words, to be worthy of instant death." Such were hunting
in the night disguised, pulling down turnpike gates, refusing to
leave a meeting at the order of a magistrate, marrying a couple
outside of a church without the license of the Archbishop of
Canterbury, stealing from the person above one shilling, or from
a house above five shillings, and enough other comparatively trivial acts to fill a chapter. For these grave crimes a person
might be dragged to the place of execution at the heels of
horses, embowelled alive, burnt to death, beheaded, quartered,
or have his cheek or hands branded before execution. As late
as the reign of William IV., in capital cases counsel for the ac.
cused were not allowed to plead for a criminal, further than to
state points of law to the Court. While such a Penal Code would
disgrace the Fiji Islands, it remained the law, with slight modifications, till the reign of George IV.; and much of it is law to
this day. Yet the classical Blackstone was never tired of eulogizing this brutal code; while Paley, the arch-deacon, could congratulate the readers of his "Moral Philosophy" that torture to
extort confessions had been excluded from what he called "the
mild and cautious system of penal jurisprudence established in
this country." In 1809 Sir Samuel Romilly proposed two bills
in Parliament, repealing the laws making it capital to steal to
the value of above five shillings from a shop, or forty from a
dwelling-house. Both bills failed, and the excitement caused by
this attempt to narrow the province of the scaffold is almost incredible. He was pounced upon without mercy by all classes,
from the Chancellor in his robes to the vulgar pamphleteer in
Grub Street, and barely escaped the prison walls himself. What
would have become of him had he questioned the authority of
the authors of this sanguinary code, although some of them had
died a thousand years before? Your theory is extremely gracious, Mr. Mill; but what does it avail when one seeks to put it
into deeds?
That Government derives its powers from brute force is as
plain as a primer lesson. It may tickle the American ear to
hear on the Fourth of July that "Governments derive their just
powers from the consent of the governed," but in practice it
is a silly satire on common sense. What Government was ever
organized on this principle? If any man be so shallow as to
suppose ours is, let him pause a moment. We will suppose
there are, in round numbers, four million voters in this country.
Two million of these voters, plus one, are determined on a set of
men and measures which mean ruin and disgust to the remaining two million, minus one. What does this mean in practice?




18


What is Freedom?


It means as plainly as any thing can that a Government created
by one man can rule two million, less one, without appeal, for
four years, although they may hate their rulers and their rule as
they would a coil of snakes. The Republicans, in smuggling
Hayes into the Presidential chair by one electoral vote, cause
more than two millions of people to be governed for the next
four years by a forced consent, which is no consent at all; and
that by the power of one man. What is Jefferson's high sounding maxim good for, then, except to cheat school-boys? If the
authors of the Declaration of Independence had waited for their
powers till they had received the consent of the governed, this
nation would never have been born.
Our fathers inaugurated their specious farce of "free government" with pompous platitudes.  But their first act was to rob
one-half of the people of the right of representation. It is not
necessary here to review in detail the arguments for woman's
suffrage. The utter injustice of restricting the right of voting to
the whiskered lords of creation is next to self-evident, and one
day it will be found in the historian's fossil cabinet of extinct
barbarisms. In 1873 I spent several months in one of the most
intelligent towns of the South. On account of its healthy location it was the residence of many cultivated and refined people.
The Mayor of this place (of some two thousand inhabitants) was
a rude negro, who held his office by virtue of the number of black
votes he could control in the county. He handled all the taxes,
could send people, right and left, to the penitentiary for ordinary
penal offences, and had discretion in cases of equity involving
not more than twenty thousand dollars. He could not read, and
the utmost stretch of his scholarship was to write his name, which
he did with great ostentation. I have seen a cultivated southern
lawyer, who had once been Attorney General of the State of Mississippi, and was educated in Yale College, plead and pile up the
law before him, while he sat in his magisterial robe of red flannel with his feet on the table. This Ethiopian magnate could
vote, and create votes; but the grieving widows of fallen Southrons, who were being taxed unto desperation and robbed of the
little that remained to them to fatten a gang of thieving carpetbaggers, could not approach the ballot-box. This is the " consent of the governed " with a vengeance. Yet gentlemen of
culture in New England who clamored to extend the suffrage to
this burly fellow, and would not refuse it to a Bleecker Street
bully in New York, will deny it to their own mothers and sisters, though they may be taxed tenfold more than the entire
ring of ward politicians who are spending their money. Do
not wait, then, till the Fourth of July for an application of " taxation without representation." It is unblushingly practised every day, and on every household. I will admit that the most




What is Freedom 7


19


humiliating feature of the business is the fact that the victimized
parties - the women themselves - are those least alive to the injustice of this outrage; but this is no better argument for it than
the fact that the southern slave was less keenly alive to his condition than were Sumner and Phillips. Woman inherits the
stultifying incubus of thousands of years of Heathen and Christian education, which has taught her to bow submissively to the
divine prerogative of he-ism. The right of suffrage, although it
does not go to the root of the matter, is one step towards saving
the soul which some religions refuse to credit her with, and irescuing her from the lusts and usurpations of men to be mistress
of herself.
So, then, we find that two million men, plus one, by their votes,
can organize a government which shall control the remaining
thirty-eight millions of people, who either have had no voice at all,
or by their express votes are directly opposed to it. One would
naturally suppose that the representatives of the will of these
two millions, plus one, would have immense deference for the
two millions, minus one, who voted against them. In practice,
they are, however, as far as the majority can have it, entirely unrepresented. Stuart Mill says that a pure Democracy is a government in which the will of every individual is felt, and that
the perfection of a representative government may be measured by its approach to this condition. It is doubtful whether
one-tenth of American voters know what minority representation
means. This question was discussed in a public hall before a
very intelligent audience, - on the one side by an able member
of the Rhode Island bar, and on the other by a well-known physician; and, although conducted with great spirit, the auditors
hardly cared enough about it to keep awake. What does the
*average American care about minority representation? He simply has a vague idea that we have reached that glorious point of
civilization where the majority rules, and he cares little for so
abstract a chimera as that the minority should receive their quantum of representation, if the principles of the Declaration of Independence be any thing more than empty bombast. Chapters
could be quoted from the writings of Burke, Mill, Guizot, and
Calhoun, showing that a majority, if it mean no more than mere
numbers, is the worst and most hateful species of despotism conceivable. No American statesman would have the hardihood to
maintain that a majority, by mere force of numbers, is preferable
to any other despot. Calhoun employed his latest hours and
most elaborate efforts on a work designed as a warning against
the dangers of that absolutism which would result from committing the destinies of the country to the uncontrolled government of a numerical majority. Politicians, when questioned as
to their just title to power, will cunningly maintain that in this




'20


What is Freedom f


country the minority is represented through the complex nature of our representative bodies, although they know better.
But if the two millions of votes, plus one, really represented a
solid and sincere constituency of earnest men, the remainder
might be called upon with some show of justice to submit in patience till the principles to which they were devoted had had a
fair trial. What is the fact? An unscrupulous gang of bondholders, stock-operators, and political leeches convenes at Cincinnati or St. Louis, conceals its schemes of plunder beneath a
specious platform, and nominates as its executors men who will
best serve its purposes. So far from the nominees being the preconceived choice of a party, the people have no idea of their being
nominated till the telegraph suddenly announces it. The office
holders are in a fever of anxiety; while a crowd of voters stand
around the bulletins, bandying the kind of slang remarks that
are heard from a party watching a faro-bank in a gambling saloon. Where is the voice of the people? It is the voice of the
Shylocks and railroad kings and political gamesters. Here, then,
is your " consent of the governed." In the last analysis it is the
forced acquiescence of a tax-ridden, over-governed people under
the forms of a sham Constitution. Your imposing popular majority is easily sifted down to a small knot of scheming boss-jobbers.
Men, right and left, are free to admit it. This is no hasty crimination. Everybody knows it. These cunning plunderers and
their auxiliaries own the press and the pulpit. When death, the
only power which they cannot control, overtakes them, their own
corrupt organs eulogize them; the pulpit chimes in, and tickets
them through to heaven. Legislatures which they have often
bought up adjourn; universities which are shameless enough
to receive their stolen property close their doors; and their gibes
and jobs are handed over to their children. During the late
campaign, in a torch-light procession, I saw a squad of brawny
day-laborers carrying a transparency with the words: " We want
a government of the people, by the people, and for the people."
As the stirring music of the band resounded from the great
mercantile magazines of wealth, there was something touching
in the scene. Poor trudging dupes! you want a government
for the people, while the agent of a foreign bond-holding Jew in
St. Louis, with his hand on the telegraph, is using you to lay
the pipes which shall suck up your hard earnings for generations,
and doom you and your children's children to poverty and brutal
toil.
Behold, then, your real rulers I This is the stuff that bloats itself into majorities. These are the men who tell us we are sick,
and must be put under their treatment, whether we will or not.
The legislatures are their doctors' councils; the governors and
sheriffs and judges and police are their active practitioners; the




What is Freedom?.21


prisons and work-houses are their hospitals. Their only title is
force. Their right is intrenched in might, and the secret of their
might is the ignorance and stupidity of their patients. Guizot
truly says that there can be but two titles to government, - consent or force. I need not ask you how small a fraction of the
American people will submit to the swindle of these four years
by real consent. Acquiescence is not consent. It is a convenient term for the victims of force, when they cannot, or will not,
help themselves.
There is no great error in politics that does not necessarily
affect every department of social life. In measuring the baneful
effects of majority rule simply by its influence on political life,
its magnitude is but faintly seen. There is a tribunal, not indeed created by ballots, yet vastly more far-reaching and terrible
than " official returns," which is known as " Public Opinion."
This monster offspring of the majority force in elections is the
omnipresent nightmare of " respectable " citizens. Rather than
be branded with its unwritten verdict, "unpopular," men and
women will stultify their souls, sell their bodies into slavery, and
bury their consciences. With the fear of this hideous scare before their eyes, the tongues of clergymen are cankered with lies.
Under the terrors of its sceptre men will sneak into the privacy
of their closets to whisper to a confiding friend opinions "too
valuable for the world." Women, rather than incur one frown
from this phantom god, will pine and starve and weep and waste
in solitude, sell themselves into legalized prostitution, or mouse
around, in demoralizing stealth, to obtain Heaven's freest gift.
Under the tyranny of ballots you are not left entirely without
hope. The figure-heads change from time to time; there is some
variety, not a little fun, and a slight prospect of ultimate relief.
But, under this latter despotism, there is no mercy and no appeal. Popular Majority may elect a Grant. Though you understand the swindle you are taxed to support, there is some relief
in the thought that the corrupt stables will soon be aired and
swept and smoked out for a new occupant. But, when popular
opinion sets up a Grundy, it has fastened an absolute monarch
upon society as undethronable as a Sphynx. Her reign has no
constitutional limits. Her mandates are supreme. The waggle
of her gossiping tongue is more potent than the sceptre of the
Cesars. The rustle of her petticoats is more momentous than
the cackle of Juno's geese. Her throne is all the more firm from
being planted in the imagination. Her frowns are all the more
terrible from being masked in nebulous mystery. Her sword is
all the more dreadful from being wielded in the dark. Like all
successful powers of darkness, she is mighty because unseen,
and lives perpetual because intangible.
England and America, the strongholds of majority rule, afford




322


What is Freedom?


the most humiliating spectacle of servile conformity to the dictation of custom to be found in modern society. The history of
human progress is essentially the history of non-conformity. But
when men renounce conformity to the practices of Monarchy and
lend the same allegiance to Majority, they simply exchange one
tyrant for another. In spirit their condition remains the same.
When Protestants renounced conformity to Popery, they immediately saddled upon themselves the Bible, - only a new name for
what was in spirit the same despotism. The spirit of free inquiry
which crept in was the only element which gave this great turningpoint of modern civilization any just title to be called the Reformation. When will men learn that it is the spirit of an act, rather
than the name, which determines its virtue? If the testimony of
such observers as Thackeray, Mill, and Herbert Spencer may be
trusted, the spirit of conformity is more zealous now than in the
Middle Ages. Edward II. prescribed by statute what should be
the dress of every rank, profession, and trade in England under
severe penalties. Now Fashion does it, under penalties scarcely
less dreadful to those who would be respectable. What is the
difference? A penalty which you create by your own foolishness is as merciless as a penalty of the Tudors, and often more
unreasonable.  The habit of compromising one's convictions
with the modern supreme ruler, Popularity, has developed and
fattened that most hateful monster of our times, Hypocrisy.
John Morley, in his essay on "Compromise," says that hypocrisy has become so universal in England that even eminent
prelates do not blush to extenuate it on grounds of expediency.
Public Opinion has become so powerful a rival of Conscience
that a man's inner convictions are not supposed to have any
necessary connection with his profession. Offices in the Church,
which were supposed once to carry something of sacredness with
them, are looked upon now as bargains men have struck between
their inner feelings and Mammon. The most successful pulpits
are Punch and Judy shows. One hears quite frequently great
surprise expressed that Barnum does not take the hint, seeing
how the Moody and Sankey business draws; and the suspicion
has even got as far as the papers that these two religious mountebanks are in the employ of some western showman who keeps
in the dark. Hypocrisy has become so common in this country
in high places that holy things excite scarcely more than a
shrewd grin from the classes who read and observe. It has
finally become so brazen that it begins to defend itself on grounds
of expediency, and is really in a fair way to become itself "popular."  This is no exaggeration. Herbert Spencer, in his essay on "Manners and Fashion," traces the lamentable slavery
of Englishmen to Custom to its only source, Government.
With logical certainty, you can measure the progress of a peo



What is Freedom?


23


pie in self-government by the spirit of non-conformity to conventionalities which is discoverable in individuals. By this standard
whence comes the mountain of hypocrisy, time-serving, doubledealing, and soul-selling, which assumes more astonishing proportions in England and the United States than in any other
countries in the world? Does it not arise from a blind, unquestioning submission to the despotism of majorities which, carried
into social life, prompts a man to forsake his conscience, reason,
and conviction, in deference to what may chance to be popular?
Out of this condition of things has been developed a political
dogma, scarcely less pernicious than the dogma of total depravity in theology. It is that the individual is of no account
against the tendencies and objects of society. Guizot, in his
" History of Civilization," says that "the last and grandest problem to which the history of civilization can lead us is whether
society is formed for the individual, or the individual for society." He admits that he has not the courage to answer this
question, though it still haunts him at the end of his lectures.
It is naturally the underlying question in the philosophy of society, and on its decision depends the ultimate progress or decline
of the race. Guizot, although not satisfied with himself, prefers
to remain " on the fence," and asserts that the two principles are
mutual in their results to civilization. Most builders of States
have found it safest to adopt this conservative polity.  The
founders of this government adopted it, and were careful that no
line of the Constitution should ignore individual sovereignty in
the sisterhood of United States. The problem given to the framers of the Constitution was substantially: Draft an equitable
compromise between the rights of States as individuals and the
interests of society as a whole, with the strict condition that the
sovereignty of an individual State shall never be invaded in deference to society at large. Our fathers kept this last main term
ever in view, and solved the problem with acknowledged ability
and honesty. As the delegates from each State signed the national parchment, they cast a hesitating glance at its chief condition. Rhode Island, being an insignificant individual in point
of size, was so tenacious of her sovereignty that she refused to
take part in the convention, and could not be persuaded, till the
last moment, to join the Union, lest she might thereby commit
the fatal mistake of signing away her individuality. What has
become of this cardinal principle of the original compact? It
was ravished and wiped out in the late War of the Rebellion.
At Appomattox was virtually surrendered the vital safeguard
that first made the Union possible. Since then, the principle
of centralization has stealthily insinuated itself into public sanction, and the dominant administration has carried it into practice
as fast as the people would bear. This last act of treason to the




24


What is Freedom 7


Constitution has been covered by specious pretexts; but, taken7
in all its bearings, it is a more murderous rebellion against the
spirit and intent of our government than was ever concocted by
slave-holding conspirators. For, if we bear in mind - what most
political writers concede- that the problem of the individual is
the problem of the race, we must give the fathers credit for great
wisdom in recognizing it in their Constitution; and since, as has
been said, the political model becomes the guide in social life, it
was a perpetual incentive to aspiration in the individual member
of society, on whose elevation and emancipation the salvation of
humanity hangs. To stamp out and bury this beautiful germ
seems to have been the purpose of the corrupt vandals, headed
by Grant, who managed the Ship of State for eight years. But
the high destiny of the individual is too evident a part of the
plan of Nature to be thwarted by such moral pigmies. The last
act in the drama of human perfection will go on, till artificial
governments shall put aside their trumpery to make room for
the development of individual manhood and womanhood.
Government is an organized conspiracy against the individual.
It differs from other conspiracies mainly in point of numbers
and respectability.  Successful conspiracies make heroes and
patriots; unsuccessful make traitors and outlaws. For ages, the
individual, in government, was yet unborn. In the Athenian
State,-the nearest approach to recognizing him in ancient
times, - the figures stand thus:--
Adult male free citizens, who alone could exercise politicalfranchises, 21,ooo
Free women and children....63,000
Slaves............  400,000
In more modern civilizations the individual has been able to
make himself felt only by organizing into legislative units. The
Great Charter which the Norman barons secured from King John
"by the grace of God," in 1215, was the first effort of this kind
in later times. It established the provision, which Mr. Hallam
calls "the keystone of English liberty," that no freeman should
be convicted and punished, "unless by. legal consent of his
peers."  Representative governments, with responsible ministries and the various agitations for parliamentary reform, were
all movements of the individual to get out of the quagmire of
despotism upon a footing where he might wage a fair fight for liberty. It would be ungenerous to say that he does not stand on
better ground in this country than in any other. But what is
conceded to him is through sufferance rather than from justice.
Society has not yet been educated to a sense of his worth. The
pyramid is inverted, and we are educated to believe that he is of
no account against the majority conspirators who insist on doctoring him without his consent.




What is Freedom?


25


We hardly get our eyes open in this life before we discover
that somebody stands ready to govern us. As soon as we can
walk, the corps of governors is increased by the addition of
Sunday-School teachers, school masters, and clergymen. Once
old enough to be responsible, the judges, legislators, and police
step in for a share, and the whole bevy is finally reinforced by
the "government of God." We, in turn, retaliate by governing
our brothers, sisters, relatives, and friends. Then we look about
for a wife, and try to govern her; and if we are fortunate enough
to have children, we repeat our whole experience on them. In
short, nine-tenths of existence is spent in governing and being
governed. All this time we studiously forget to govern ourselves.  In fact, the whole tenor of our education makes us
believe that we have no right to govern ourselves; that is the business of somebody outside of ourselves. The stirring American
citizen is entirely out of a job as soon as he has nobody to govern,
and immediately sets to work to find somebody. The first article
of his political creed is that we are all by nature sick, and must be
doctored; hence his chief care is to erect costly doctor-shops for
dispensing governmental remedies. His proudest prerogative is
to nominate and vote for the doctors who are to officiate, and to
see that they are properly honored and remunerated.
All this is very well for those who are determined to be sick,
wish to be doctored, and are willing to pay for it, by such methods. But what becomes of the individual who does not want to
be sick, and who, when he is sick, chooses to doctor himself at
his own risk and cost? Provided he disturb no one else, what
right has society to drag him into its arrangements? It has no
right, - and no title but force. Mr. Froude, the historian, is the
only man of prominence at the present day who is consistent on
this subject. When in this country, being called upon to show
by what title England governed (or rather misgoverned) Ireland,
he faced the issue squarely, admitted that the only title was
might, and shaped his political ethics accordingly. Twist and
whitewash the moral philosophy of politics as you will, an honest man can arrive at but one result,--might is right. You
may call government "a mutual compact," "a compromise for
the general good," or give it any specious title you will, the moment you bind a person to it without his or her consent it is an
organized robber.
It is hardly worth while to answer the kind of questions that
are often thrust forward by thoughtless persons, such as: " Would
you do away with all government? " " Would you banish all law?"
" Would you go back to anarchy? " and others of that stamp. No
man can escape government and law. In fact, government and
law are the very conditions that make existence possible. But
there is a vast difference between the laws of Nature and the




26


What is Freedom.


conventional tinkerings of men. The best government that ever
existed is at war with Nature, in so far as it interferes with the
natural right of individuals to make their own contracts in trade,
love, and culture, at their own expense.
Neither would any sane man deny that human governments
are necessary. But necessary and right are by no means identical terms. Society admits that there are necessary evils. Government is one of them. We may submit with the best grace
we can command, but we should never forget that it is a tyrant.
When I chain up my dog, he caresses the hand that enslaves
him. I do not propose to do so with government. Every man
and woman should be zealous to kick off the fetters on personal
liberty as fast as possible, rather than help forge new ones. The
individual should never forget that the end and aim of all honest
government is finally to secure his sovereignty. If he submits
to the necessities of the hour, he does double violence to himself
when he makes a god out of what his masters admit to be a necessary evil. 0. B. Frothingham said a very pretty thing in one
of his sermons: "The main duty of the church is to teach its
members how to get along without it." So the chief impulse of
artificial governments should be to keep their meddlesome decrees down to the lowest possible number, having constantly in
view the earliest practicable time when they shall become unnecessary. Government should rest on three main pillars: first,
the inviolability of life; second, the inviolability of one's honest
possession (not property, as now understood); third, the inviolability of all liberty which does not undermine the first two. The
triumph of reformers will be secured first around the first pillar; for war, legal murder, and brutality are gradually fading out
of favor in the softening rays of modern refinement. Around
the second, the fight is now culminating with ominous rapidity.
Government, not satisfied merely to define " honest possession "
by its barbarous terni "property," stands ready to defend it
against outraged Labor with its police and bayonets.  The
struggle must come; the war is inevitable; but, at whatever
cost, the right will come uppermost, and justice shall be done.
Around the last pillar, the contest will be longest and most
persistent; for government assumes to put that kind of construction as to what is destructive to life and property, which
suits the "genius of society." The reformer maintains that his
theories, if rightly analyzed and put into practice, are the real
conservators of property. The judge dissents, and charges that
the agitator should be gagged, since such doctrines tend to anarchy, - that is, unsettle property. If the reformer still maintain that his opinion is just as sacred to him as is that of the
judge, the latter will contemptuously admit that, for aught he
knows, the opinion is a sounder one and more sacred, but



What is Freedom.7


27


What!-" My opinion is backed by prisons and artillery; help
yourself if you can! "
Choked off by this last "argument," the reformer tries his
head and heart at social and moral doctrines. But here again
he finds that his opinions as to morality do not square with those
of the judge. By the late congressional gag law, the judge need
not waste his time in weighing opinions with his victim. He
charges the jury that, whatever be the character of the pamphleteer, or however noble and conscientious the motive, if its
moral creed should be found not to coincide with established hotions, they are bound to treat him to the opportunity of sending
the moral reform rival to prison. In the matter of free contracts which violate neither life nor property, and are executed
solely at the cost of the contracting parties, the judge thrusts
himself forcibly between the parties, and insolently affirms that
there can be no contracts where he is not recognized as an interested party.
So the old tragedy of human despotism goes on under modernized forms: on the one side, Government backed by brute
force; on the other, Conscience backed by the silent machinery
of the moral universe. More martyrs are yet to come; but let
not radicals despair. After all, how insignificant the pigmy
pensioners of an hour of authority as against the soul's indwelling promise of infinite perfectibility in a limitless future. Nature reversed the verdicts of all tyrants before the first was born.
History soon makes their brow-beaten victims their judges, and
they are forgotten. Can we not afford to wait?




WHAT IS PROPERTY?
Or An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of
Government.
By P. J. PROUTDHON.
Prefaced by a Sketch of Proudhon's Life and Works, by
J. A. LANCLOIS, and containing as a Frontispiece a
Fine Steel Engraving of the Author.
TRANSLATED FROM     THE FRENCH BY BEN J. R. TUCKER.
A systematic, thorough, and radical discussion of the institution of Property, -
its basis, its history, its present status, and its destiny, -together with a detailed
and startling exposeof the crimes which it commits, and the evils which it engenders.
A large octavo volume of 500 pages, handsomely printed.
Price in cloth, bevelled edges........ $3.50,, full calf, blue, gilt edges.....  6.50
TRUE CIVILIZATION.
A Subject of Vital and Serious Interest to all People,
but most immediately to the Men and Women of
Labor and Sorrow.
By JOSIAH[ WARREN.
A pamphlet of 117 pages, now passing through its fifth edition, explaining the
basic principles of Labor Reform, - Liberty and Equity. Price 30 cents.
The above books sent, postpaid, by the Publisher,
BENJ. R. TUCKER, BOSTON, MASS.