the latest advices from Mexico, after dinner, and, it may
be, fall asleep over them both. What is the price-current

of an honest man and patriot today? They hesitate, and they
regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in

earnest and with effect. They will wait, well disposed, for
other to remedy the evil, that they may no longer have it to

regret. At most, they give up only a cheap vote, and a
feeble countenance and Godspeed, to the right, as it goes by

them. There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of
virtue to one virtuous man. But it is easier to deal with

the real possessor of a thing than with the temporary
guardian of it.

All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or
backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with

right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally
accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked.

I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not
vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am

willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation,
therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting

for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only
expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail.

A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance,
nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.

There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men.
When the majority shall at length vote for the abolition of

slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery,
or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished

by their vote. They will then be the only slaves. Only his
vote can hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own

freedom by his vote.
I hear of a convention to be held at Baltimore, or

elsewhere, for the selection of a candidate for the
Presidency, made up chiefly of editors, and men who are

politicians by profession; but I think, what is it to any
independent, intelligent, and respectable man what decision

they may come to? Shall we not have the advantage of this
wisdom and honesty, nevertheless? Can we not count upon

some independent votes? Are there not many individuals in
the country who do not attend conventions? But no: I find

that the respectable man, so called, has immediately drifted
from his position, and despairs of his country, when his

country has more reasons to despair of him. He forthwith
adopts one of the candidates thus selected as the only

available one, thus proving that he is himself available for
any purposes of the demagogue. His vote is of no more worth

than that of any unprincipled foreigner or hireling native,
who may have been bought. O for a man who is a man, and,

and my neighbor says, has a bone is his back which you
cannot pass your hand through! Our statistics are at fault:

the population has been returned too large. How many men
are there to a square thousand miles in the country?

Hardly one. Does not America offer any inducement for men
to settle here? The American has dwindled into an Odd

Fellow--one who may be known by the development of his organ
of gregariousness, and a manifest lack of intellect and

cheerful self-reliance; whose first and chief concern, on
coming into the world, is to see that the almshouses are in

good repair; and, before yet he has lawfully donned the
virile garb, to collect a fund to the support of the widows

and orphans that may be; who, in short, ventures to live
only by the aid of the Mutual Insurance company, which has

promised to bury him decently.
It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to

devote himself to the eradication of any, even to most
enormous, wrong; he may still properly have other concerns

to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his
hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to

give it practically his support. If I devote myself to
other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at

least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's
shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his

contemplations too. See what gross inconsistency is tolerated.
I have heard some of my townsmen say, "I should like to

have them order me out to help put down an insurrection
of the slaves, or to march to Mexico--see if I would go";

and yet these very men have each, directly by their
allegiance, and so indirectly, at least, by their money,

furnished a substitute. The soldier is applauded who
refuses to serve in an unjust war by those who do not refuse

to sustain the unjust government which makes the war;
is applauded by those whose own act and authority he disregards

and sets at naught; as if the state were penitent to that
degree that it hired one to scourge it while it sinned, but

not to that degree that it left off sinning for a moment.
Thus, under the name of Order and Civil Government, we are

all made at last to pay homage to and support our own meanness.
After the first blush of sin comes its indifference; and from

immoral it becomes, as it were, unmoral, and not quite unnecessary
to that life which we have made.

The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most
disinterested virtue to sustain it. The slight reproach to

which the virtue of patriotism is commonlyliable, the noble
are most likely to incur. Those who, while they disapprove

of the character and measures of a government, yield to it
their allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most

conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious
obstacles to reform. Some are petitioning the State to

dissolve the Union, to disregard the requisitions of the
President. Why do they not dissolve it themselves--the

union between themselves and the State--and refuse to pay
their quota into its treasury? Do not they stand in same

relation to the State that the State does to the Union? And
have not the same reasons prevented the State from resisting

the Union which have prevented them from resisting the State?
How can a man be satisfied to entertain and opinion

merely, and enjoy it? Is there any enjoyment in it, if his
opinion is that he is aggrieved? If you are cheated out of

a single dollar by your neighbor, you do not rest satisfied
with knowing you are cheated, or with saying that you are

cheated, or even with petitioning him to pay you your due;
but you take effectual steps at once to obtain the full

amount, and see to it that you are never cheated again.
Action from principle, the perception and the performance of

right, changes things and relations; it is essentially
revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything

which was. It not only divided States and churches, it
divides families; ay, it divides the individual, separating

the diabolical in him from the divine.
Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or

shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have
succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men,

generally, under such a government as this, think that they
ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to

alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the
remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of

the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil.
It makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and

provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority?
Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt? Why does it not

encourage its citizens to put out its faults, and do better than