People v. State

fairly undermining public confidence in the administration of justice
Subscribe

“The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free. They are the lov­ers of law and order who ob­serve the law when the gov­ern­ment breaks it.”

November 22, 2011 By: John Kindley Category: Henry David Thoreau

“Among human be­ings, the judge whose words seal the fate of a man fur­thest into eter­nity is not he who merely pro­nounces the ver­dict of the law, but he, who­ever he may be, who, from a love of truth, and un­prej­u­diced by any cus­tom or en­act­ment of men, ut­ters a true opin­ion or sen­tence con­cern­ing him. He it is that sen­tences him. Who­ever can dis­cern truth has re­ceived his com­mis­sion from a higher source than the chief­est jus­tice in the world who can dis­cern only law. He finds him­self con­sti­tuted judge of the judge. Strange that it should be nec­es­sary to state such sim­ple truths! [¶23]

“I am more and more con­vinced that, with ref­er­ence to any pub­lic ques­tion, it is more im­por­tant to know what the coun­try thinks of it than what the city thinks. The city does not think much. On any moral ques­tion, I would rather have the opin­ion of Box­boro’ than of Bos­ton and New York put to­gether. When the former speaks, I feel as if some­body had spoken, as if hu­man­ity was yet, and a rea­son­a­ble be­ing had as­serted its rights — as if some un­prej­u­diced men among the coun­try’s hills had at length turned their at­ten­tion to the sub­ject, and by a few sen­si­ble words re­deemed the rep­u­ta­tion of the race. When, in some ob­scure coun­try town, the farm­ers come to­gether to a spe­cial town-meet­ing, to ex­press their opin­ion on some sub­ject which is vex­ing the land, that, I think, is the true Con­gress, and the most re­spect­a­ble one that is ever as­sem­bled in the United States. [¶24]

. . .

“The ef­fect of a good gov­ern­ment is to make life more val­u­a­ble — of a bad one, to make it less val­u­a­ble. We can af­ford that rail­road and all merely ma­te­rial stock should lose some of its value, for that only com­pels us to live more sim­ply and ec­o­nom­i­cally; but sup­pose that the value of life it­self should be di­min­ished! How can we make a less de­mand on man and na­ture, how live more ec­o­nom­i­cally in re­spect to vir­tue and all no­ble qualities, than we do? I have lived for the last month — and I think that every man in Mas­sa­chu­setts ca­pa­ble of the sen­ti­ment of pa­tri­ot­ism must have had a sim­i­lar ex­pe­ri­ence — with the sense of hav­ing suf­fered a vast and in­def­i­nite loss. I did not know at first what ailed me. At last it oc­curred to me that what I had lost was a coun­try. I had never re­spected the gov­ern­ment near to which I lived, but I had fool­ishly thought that I might man­age to live here, mind­ing my pri­vate af­fairs, and forget it. For my part, my old and wor­thi­est pur­suits have lost I can­not say how much of their at­trac­tion, and I feel that my in­vest­ment in life here is worth many per cent less since Mas­sa­chu­setts last de­lib­er­ately sent back an in­no­cent man, Anthony Burns, to slav­ery. I dwelt be­fore, per­haps, in the il­lu­sion that my life passed some­where only be­tween heaven and hell, but now I can­not per­suade my­self that I do not dwell wholly within hell. The site of that po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­za­tion called Mas­sa­chu­setts is to me mor­ally cov­ered with vol­canic sco­riae and cin­ders, such as Mil­ton de­scribes in the in­fer­nal re­gions. If there is any hell more un­prin­ci­pled than our rul­ers, and we, the ruled, I feel cu­ri­ous to see it. Life itself be­ing worth less, all things with it, which min­is­ter to it, are worth less. Sup­pose you have a small li­brary, with pic­tures to adorn the walls — a gar­den laid out around — and con­tem­plate sci­en­tific and lit­er­ary pur­suits, &c., and dis­cover all at once that your villa, with all its con­tents is lo­cated in hell, and that the jus­tice of the peace has a clo­ven foot and a forked tail — do not these things sud­denly lose their value in your eyes? [¶46]

“I feel that, to some ex­tent, the State has fa­tally in­ter­fered with my law­ful busi­ness. It has not only in­ter­rupted me in my pas­sage through Court Street on er­rands of trade, but it has in­ter­rupted me and every man on his on­ward and up­ward path, on which he had trusted soon to leave Court Street far be­hind. What right had it to re­mind me of Court Street? I have found that hol­low which even I had re­lied on for solid. [¶47]

“I am sur­prised to see men go­ing about their busi­ness as if noth­ing had hap­pened. I say to my­self, “Un­for­tu­nates! they have not heard the news.” I am sur­prised that the man whom I just met on horse­back should be so ear­nest to over­take his newly bought cows run­ning away — since all prop­erty is in­se­cure, and if they do not run away again, they may be taken away from him when he gets them. Fool! does he not know that his seed-corn is worth less this year — that all be­nef­i­cent har­vests fail as you ap­proach the em­pire of hell? No pru­dent man will build a stone house un­der these cir­cum­stances, or en­gage in any peace­ful en­ter­prise which it re­quires a long time to ac­com­plish. Art is as long as ever, but life is more in­ter­rupted and less avail­a­ble for a man’s proper pur­suits. It is not an era of re­pose. We have used up all our in­her­ited free­dom. If we would save our lives, we must fight for them. [¶48]

“I walk toward one of our ponds; but what sig­ni­fies the beauty of na­ture when men are base? We walk to lakes to see our se­ren­ity re­flected in them; when we are not se­rene, we go not to them. Who can be se­rene in a coun­try where both the rul­ers and the ruled are with­out prin­ci­ple? The re­mem­brance of my coun­try spoils my walk. My thoughts are mur­der to the State, and in­vol­un­ta­rily go plot­ting against her. [¶49]

“But it chanced the other day that I scented a white wa­ter-lily, and a sea­son I had waited for had ar­rived. It is the em­blem of pu­rity. It bursts up so pure and fair to the eye, and so sweet to the scent, as if to show us what pu­rity and sweet­ness re­side in, and can be ex­tracted from, the slime and muck of earth. I think I have plucked the first one that has opened for a mile. What con­fir­ma­tion of our hopes is in the fra­grance of this flower! I shall not so soon de­spair of the world for it, not­with­stand­ing slav­ery, and the cow­ard­ice and want of prin­ci­ple of North­ern men. It sug­gests what kind of laws have pre­vailed long­est and wid­est, and still pre­vail, and that the time may come when man’s deeds will smell as sweet. Such is the odor which the plant emits. If Na­ture can com­pound this fra­grance still an­nually, I shall be­lieve her still young and full of vigor, her in­teg­rity and genius un­im­paired, and that there is vir­tue even in man, too, who is fit­ted to per­ceive and love it. It re­minds me that Na­ture has been part­ner to no Mis­souri Com­pro­mise. I scent no com­pro­mise in the fra­grance of the wa­ter-lily. It is not a Nym­phæa Doug­lasii. In it, the sweet, and pure, and in­no­cent are wholly sun­dered from the ob­scene and bale­ful. I do not scent in this the time-serv­ing ir­res­o­lu­tion of a Mas­sa­chu­setts Gov­er­nor, nor of a Bos­ton Mayor. So be­have that the odor of your ac­tions may en­hance the gen­eral sweet­ness of the at­mos­phere, that when we be­hold or scent a flower, we may not be re­minded how in­con­sis­tent your deeds are with it; for all odor is but one form of ad­ver­tise­ment of a moral qual­ity, and if fair ac­tions had not been per­formed, the lily would not smell sweet. The foul slime stands for the sloth and vice of man, the de­cay of hu­man­ity; the fra­grant flower that springs from it, for the pu­rity and cour­age which are immortal. [¶50]

“Slav­ery and ser­vil­ity have pro­duced no sweet-scented flower an­nually, to charm the senses of men, for they have no real life: they are merely a de­cay­ing and a death, of­fen­sive to all healthy nos­trils. We do not com­plain that they live, but that they do not get bur­ied. Let the liv­ing bury them: even they are good for manure.” [¶51]

Henry David Thoreau’s “Slavery in Massachusetts” (1854)

 

Leave a Reply

*

  • "[T]here is just nothing wrong with telling the American people the truth." - Allen v. United States

  • Lysander Spooner

    Henry George

    Harriet Tubman

    Sitting Bull

    Angelus Silesius

    Smedley Butler

    Rose Wilder Lane

    Albert Jay Nock

    Dora Marsden

    Leo Tolstoy

    Henry David Thoreau

    John Brown

    Karl Hess

    Levi Coffin

    Max Stirner

    Dorothy Day

    Ernst Jünger

    Thomas Paine