cams_benton_b028_f012_002_018

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if not legally so, and morally binding. "If an administration defeat
the ends of all good government; if violated law be not
avenged; if the guilty go free; if the criminal be not
arrested, or, if arrested, he go unpunished; if, with law,
subjects & citizens must live as though there were no law,
and the lawless plundee & plunder them, or, threaten them, or shed their blood, as though there were
no rulers; & idleness, shame & crime grow bold, and
triumph over industry, virtue, and helplessness, as though
there were no authority to forbid, & no power to resist redress –
then there is no government" – worthy of the name; the officers have virtually all resigned.

Then, if officers will not resign, in form, as they have in fact, when requested;
if they can not be got rid of in any legitimate way by by forms of law and by
regular process – if the evils suffered are absolutely
intolerable, & can not be borne till the close of their terms,
then & only then the people must resume their original power, – For them to do so, it is legitimate, if not legal.
Rising in their majesty, coolly & firmly, they may & either depose their normal rulers, or
act as though there were none. This is the right of
self-defence, & self-protection; – a right belonging to com-
-munities no less than to individuals. It is not
mob-law, though it easily degenerates into it; – it is the law of necessity; the law of nature.

A mob is an infuriated band of men small, in the comparison, combined to effect
an evil, or selfish object, in an unlawful way; but the whole
people, the mass of good citizens, – risen up as one man in defence of their lives, & property, &
homes; with a calm & earnest purpose, to do justice only, are no mob; –
for they carry with them all the force of right, & truth, grandeur,
and majesty which belongs to right rule, which no mob can carry ~