I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave’s government also. How does it become a man to behave toward the American government today? I answer that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. And they are commonly treated as enemies by it. A very few-as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men-serve the state with their consciences also and so necessarily resist it for the most part. They are as likely to serve the devil without intending it, as God. Others-as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders-serve the state chiefly with their heads and as they rarely make any moral distinctions. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens.

They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. And wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgement or of the moral sense, but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones. The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly but as machines with their bodies. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. Government is at best but an expedient, but most governments are usually and all governments are sometimes inexpedient. And when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe-”That government is best which governs not at all”.

I heartily accept the motto, “That government is best which governs least” and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. 159 On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (1849)

Civil disobedience 1849