Sins of the Government, Sins of the Nation;
1. My Brethren,
2. We are called upon by high authority to separate, for religious purposes, this
portion of our common time. The shops are shut; the artisan is summoned from his
loom, and the husbandman from his plough; the whole nation, in the midst of its
business, its pleasures, and its pursuits, makes a sudden stop, and wears the
semblance, at least, of seriousness and concern. It is natural for you to inquire,
What is the purport of all this? -- the answer is in the words of my text:
"Ye stand this day, all of you, before the face of the
Lord." -- Deuteronomy, xxxix. 10. You stand all of you, that is,
you stand here as a nation, and you stand for the declared purpose of confessing
your sins, and humbling yourselves before the Supreme Being.
3. Every individual, my brethren, who has a sense of religion, and a desire of
conforming his conduct to its precepts, will frequently retire into himself to
discover his faults; and having discovered, to repent of, -- and having
repented of, to amend them. Nations have likewise their faults to repent of, their
conduct to examine; and it is therefore no less becoming and salutary, that they,
from time to time, should engage in the same duty. Those sins which we have to
repent of as individuals, belong to such transactions as relate to our private
concerns, and are executed by us in our private capacity; such as buying, selling,
the management of our family economy, differences arising from jarring interests and
interfering claims between us and our neighbours, &c. Those sins which, as a
nation, we have to repent of, belong to national acts.
4. We act as a nation, when, through the organ of the legislative power, which speaks
the will of the nation, and by means of the executive power which does the will of
the nation, we enact laws, form alliances, make war or peace, dispose of the public
money, or do any of those things which belong to us in our collective capacity. As,
comparatively, few individuals have any immediate share in these public acts, we
might be tempted to forget the responsibility which attaches to the nation at large
with regard to them, did not the wisdom and piety of the governing powers, by thus
calling us together on every public emergency, remind us that they are all our own
acts; and
that, for every violation of integrity, justice, or humanity
in public affairs, it is incumbent upon every one of us to humble himself personally
before the tribunal of Almighty God.
5. That this is the true and only rational interpretation of the solemnities of this
day, is evident from hence, that we are never enjoined to confess the sins of other
people; but our own sins. To take upon ourselves the faults of others, savours of
presumption rather than humility. There would be an absurd mockery in pretending to
humble ourselves before God for misdeeds which we have neither committed, nor have
any power to amend. Those evils which we could not help, and in which we have had no
share, are subjects of grief indeed, but not of remorse. If an oppressive law, or a
destructive war, were of the nature of a volcano or a hurricane, proceeding from
causes totally independent of our operations, -- all we should have to do would be
to bow our heads in silent submission, and to bear their ravages with a manly
patience. We do not repent of a dangerous disorder or a sickly constitution, because
these are things which do not depend upon our own efforts. If, therefore, the nation
at large had nothing to do in the affairs of the nation, the piety of our rulers
would have led them to fast and pray by themselves alone, without inviting us to
concur in this salutary work. But we are called upon to
repent of
national sins, because we can help them, and because we ought to help them. We are
not fondly to imagine we can make of kings, or of lawgivers, the scapegoats to
answer for our follies and our crimes: by the services of this day they call upon us
to answer for them; they throw the blame where it ought ultimately to rest. It were
trifling with our consciences to endeavour to separate the acts of governors
sanctioned by the nation, from the acts of the nation; for, in every transaction the
principal is answerable for the conduct of the agents he employs to transact it. If
the maxim that the king can do no wrong throws upon ministers the responsibility,
because without ministers no wrong could be done, the same reason throws it from
them upon the people, without whom ministers could do no wrong.
6. The language of the Proclamation then may be thus interpreted: -- People! who in
your individual capacities are rich and poor, high and low, governors and governed,
assemble yourselves in the unity of your public existence; rest from your ordinary
occupations, give a different direction to the exercises of your public worship,
confess -- not every man his own sins, but all the sins of all. We, your appointed
rulers, before we allow ourselves to go on in executing your will in a conjuncture
so important, force you to make a pause,
that you may be constrained to
reflect, that you may bring this will, paramount every thing else, into the sacred
presence of God; that you may there examine it, and see whether it be agreeable to
his will, and to the eternal obligations of virtue and good morals. If not, the
guilt be upon your own heads; we disclaim the awful responsibility.
7. Supposing that you are now prepared by proper views of the subject, I shall go on to
investigate those sins which a nation is most apt to be betrayed into, leaving it to
each of you to determine whether, and how far, any one of them ought to make a part
of our humiliation on this day.
8. Societies being composed of individuals, the faults of societies proceed from the
same bad passions, the same pride, selfishness, and thirst of gain, by which
individuals are led to transgress the rules of duty; they require therefore the same
curb to restrain them, and hence the necessity of a national religion. You will
probably assert, that most nations have one: but, by a national religion, I do not
mean the burning a few wretches twice or thrice in a year in honour of God, nor yet
the exacting subscription to some obscure tenets, believed by few, and understood by
none; nor yet the investing a certain order of men dressed in a particular habit,
with civil privileges and secular emolument; -- by national religion I
understand, the extending to those affairs in which we act in common, and as a
body, that regard to religion, by which, when we act singly, we all profess to be
guided. Nothing seems more obvious; and yet there are men who appear not insensible
to the rules of morality as they respect individuals, and who unaccountably disclaim
them with respect to nations. They will not cheat their opposite neighbour, but they
will take pride in overreaching a neighbouring state; they would scorn to foment
dissensions in the family of an acquaintance, but they will do so by a community
without scruple; they would not join with a gang of housebreakers to plunder a
private dwelling, but they have no principle which prevents them from joining with a
confederacy of princes to plunder a province. As private individuals, they think it
right to pass by little injuries, but as a people they think they cannot carry too
high a principle of proud defiance and sanguinary revenge. This sufficiently shows,
that whatever rule they may acknowledge for their private conduct, they have nothing
that can be properly called national religion; and indeed, it is very much to be
suspected, that their religion in the former case is very much assisted by the
contemplation of those pains and penalties which society has provided against the
crimes of individuals. But the united will of a whole people cannot
make wrong right, or sanction one act of rapacity, injustice, or breach of faith.
The first principle, therefore, we must lay down is, that we are to submit our
public conduct to the same rules by which we are to regulate our private actions: a
nation that does this is, as a nation, religions; a nation that does it not, though
it should fast, and pray, and wear sackcloth, and pay tithes, and build churches,
is, as a nation, profligate and unprincipled.
9. The vices of nations may be divided into those which relate to their own internal
proceedings, or to their relations with other states. With regard to the first, the
causes for humiliation are various. Many nations are guilty of the crime of
permitting oppressive laws and bad governments to remain amongst them, by which the
poor are crushed, and the lives of the innocent are laid at the mercy of wicked and
arbitrary men. This is a national sin of the deepest dye, as it involves in it most
others. It is painful to reflect how many atrocious governments there are in the
world; and how little even they who enjoy good ones seem to understand their true
nature. We are apt to speak of the happiness of living under an indulgent climate;
and when we thank God for it, we rank it with the blessings of the air and of the
soil; whereas we ought to thank
God for the wisdom and virtue of living
under a good government; for a good government is the first of national duties. It
is indeed a happiness, and one which demands our most grateful thanks, to be born
under one which spares us the trouble and hazard of changing it: but a people born
under a good government will probably not die under one, if they conceive of it as
of an indolent and passive happiness, to be left for its preservation to fortunate
conjunctures, and the floating and variable chances of incalculable events; -- our
second duty is to keep it good.
10. We shall not be able to fulfil either of these duties, except we cultivate in our
hearts the requisite dispositions. One of the most fruitful sources of evil in the
transaction of national affairs is a spirit of insubordination. Without a quiet
subordination to lawful authority, peace, order, and the ends of good government,
can never be attained. To fix this subordination on its proper basis, it is only
necessary to establish in our minds this plain principle, -- that the will of the
minority should ever yield to that of the majority. By this simple axiom, founded on
those common principles of justice which all men understand, the largest society may
be held together with equal ease as the smallest, provided only some well-contrived
and orderly method be established for ascertaining that will. It is the immediate
extinction of all faction, sedition, and tyranny. It supersedes the
necessity of governing by systems of blinding or terrifying the people. It puts an
end equally to the cabinet cabal, and the muffled conspiracy, and occasions every
thing to go on smoothly, openly, and fairly; whereas, if the minority attempt to
impose their will upon the majority, so unnatural a state of things will not be
submitted to without constant struggles on the one side, and constant jealousies on
the other. There are two descriptions of men who are in danger of forgetting this
excellent rule; public functionaries, and reformers. Public functionaries, being
intrusted with large powers for managing the affairs of their fellow-citizens, --
which management, from the nature of things, must necessarily be in the hands of a
few, -- are the governing will; they require, therefore, to be observed with a
wholesome suspicion, and to be frequently reminded of the nature and limits of their
office. Reformers, conceiving of themselves as of a more enlightened class than the
bulk of mankind, are likewise apt to forget the deference due to them. Stimulated by
newly discovered truths, of which they feel the full force, they are not willing to
wait for the gradual spread of knowledge, the subsiding of passion, and the
undermining of prejudices. They too contemn a
swinish multitude, and aim at an aristocracy of talents.1 It is indeed
their business to attack the prejudices, and to rectify, if they can, the systems of
their countrymen, but, in the mean time, to acquiesce in them. It is their business
to sow the seed, and let it lie patiently in the bosom of the proud, -- perhaps for
ages, -- to prepare, not to bring about revolutions. The public is not always in the
wrong for not giving in to their views, even where they have the appearance of
reason; for their plans are often crude and premature, their ideas too refined for
real life, and influenced by their own particular cast of thinking: they want people
to be happy their way; whereas every one must be happy his own way. Freedom is a
good thing; but if a nation is not disposed to accept of it, it is not to be
presented to them on the point of a bayonet. Freedom is a valuable blessing; but if
even a nation that has enjoyed that blessing evidently chooses to give it up, the
voice of the people ought to prevail: men of more liberal minds should warn them
indeed what they are about; but having done that, they should acquiesce. If the
established religion, in any country, is absurd and superstitions in the eyes of
thinking men, so long as it is the religion of the generality it ought to prevail,
and the minority should not even wish to supplant it. The endeavouring to overthrow
any system before it is given up by the majority is faction; the
endeavouring to keep it after it is given up by them is tyranny; both are equally
wrong, and both proceed form the same cause, -- the want of a principle of due
subordination.
11. If we find reason to be satisfied with the general sketch and outline of government,
and with that basis of subordination on which we have placed it, it becomes us next
to examine, whether the filling up of the plan be equally unexceptionable. Our laws,
are they mild, equal, and perspicuous; free from burdensome forms and unnecessary
delays; not a succession of expedients growing out of temporary exigencies, but a
compact whole; not adapted to local prejudices, but founded on the broad basis of
universal jurisprudence? -- Are they accessible to rich and poor, sparing of human
blood, calculated rather to check and set bounds to the inequality of fortunes than
to increase them, rather to prevent and reform crimes than to punish them? -- If
good, are they well administered? -- Is the lenity of the laws shown in the
moderation of the penalties, or in the facility of evasion and the frequency of
escape? -- Do we profit from greater degrees of instruction and longer experience,
and from time to time clear away the trash and refuse of past ages? What all are
bound to observe, are they so framed as that all may understand? -- Is there any
provi-
sion for instructing the people in the various arbitrary
obligations that are laid upon them, or are they supposed to understand them by
intuition, because they are too intricate to be explained methodically? -- Are
punishments proportioned to crimes, and rewards to services; or have we two sets of
officers, the one to do the work, the other to be paid without doing it? -- Have we
any locusts in the land, any who devour the labours of the husbandman without
contributing any thing to the good of society by their labours of body or of mind?
-- Is the name of God, and the awfulness of religious sanctions, profaned among us
by frequent, unnecessary, and ensnaring oaths, which lie like stumbling blocks in
every path of business and preferment, tending to corrupt the singleness of truth,
and wear away the delicacy of conscience; entangling even the innocence and
inexperience of children? -- Have we calculated the false oaths which, in the space
of one sun, the accusing angle has to carry up from our custom-houses, our various
courts, our hustings, our offices of taxation, and -- from our altars? -- Are they
such as a tear, if we do shed tears on a day such as this, will blot out? -- Have we
calculated the mischief which is done to the ingenuous mind, when the virgin dignity
of his soul is first violated by a falsehood? -- Have we calculated the wound which
is given to the peace of good man, the thorns that are strewed upon his
pillow, when, through hard necessity, he complies with what his soul abhors? Have we
calculated the harm done to the morals of a nation by the established necessity of
perjury? We shall do well, being now by the command of our rulers before the Lord,
to reflect on these things; and if we want food for our national penitence, perhaps
we may here find it.
12. Extravagance is a fault, to which nations, as well as private persons, are very
prone, and the consequences to both are exactly similar. If a private man lives
beyond his income, the consequence will be loss of independence, disgraceful
perplexity, and in the end certain ruin. The catastrophes of states are slower in
ripening, but like causes must in the end produce like effects. If you are
acquainted with any individual, who, from inattention to his affairs, misplaced
confidence, foolish law-suits, anticipation of his rents, and profusion in his
family expenses, has involved himself in debts that eat away his income, -- what
would you say to such a one? Would you not tell him, Contract your expenses; look
yourself into your affairs; insist upon exact accounts from your steward and
bailiffs; keep no servants for mere show and parade; mind only your own affairs, and
keep at peace with your neighbours; set religiously apart an annual sum for
discharging
the mortgages on your estate. -- If this be good advice for
one man, it is good advice for nine millions of men. If this individual should
persist in his course of unthrifty profusion, saying to himself, The ruin will not
come in my time; the misery will not fall upon me; let posterity take care of
itself! would you not pronounce him at once very weak and very selfish? My friends,
a nation that should pursue the same conduct, would be equally reprehensible.
13. Pride is a vice in individuals; it cannot, therefore, be a virtue in that number of
individuals called a nation. A disposition to prefer to every other our own habits
of life, our own management, our own systems, to suppose that we are admired and
looked up to by others -- something of this perhaps is natural, and may be pardoned
as a weakness, but it can never be exalted into a duty; it is a disposition we ought
to check, and not to cultivate: there is neither patriotism nor good sense in
fostering an extravagant opinion of ourselves and our own institutions, in being
attached even to our faults, because they are ours, and because they have been ours
from generation to generation. An exclusive admiration of ourselves is generally
founded on extreme ignorance, and it is not likely to produce any thing of a more
liberal or better stamp.
14. Amongst our national faults, have we any in-
stances of cruelty or
oppression to repent of? Can we look round from sea to sea, and from east to west,
and say, that our brother hath not aught against us? If such instances do not exist
under our immediate eye, do they exist any where under our influence and
jurisdiction? There are some, whose nerves, rather than whose principles, cannot
bear cruelty -- like other nuisances, they would not choose it in sight, but they
can be well content to know it exists, and that they are indebted for it to the
increase of their income, and the luxuries of their table. Are there not some
darker-coloured children of the same family, over whom we assume a hard and unjust
controul? And have not these our brethren aught against us? If we suspect they have,
would it not become us anxiously to inquire into the truth, that we may deliver our
souls; but if we know it, and cannot help knowing it, if such enormities have been
pressed and forced upon our notice, till they are become flat and stale in the
public ear, from fulness and repetition, and satiety of proof; and if they are still
sanctioned by our legislature, defended by our princes -- deep indeed is the colour
of our guilt. And do we appoint fasts, and make pretences to religion? Do we pretend
to be shocked at the principles or the practices of neighbouring nations, and start
with affected horror at the name of Atheist? Are our con- sciences so
tender, and our hearts so hard? Is it possible we should meet as a nation, and
knowing ourselves to be guilty of these things, have the confidence to implore the
blessing of God upon our commerce and our colonies: preface with prayer our
legislative meetings, and then deliberate how long we shall continue human
sacrifices? Rather let us
| Never pray more, abandon all remorse. |
15. Let us lay aside the grimace of hypocrisy, and stand up for what we are, and boldly
profess, like the emperor of old, that every thing is sweet from which money is
extracted, and that we know better than to deprive ourselves of a gain for the sake
of a fellow-creature.
16. I next invite you, my friends, to consider your conduct with regard to other states.
Different communities are neighbours, living together in a state of nature; that is,
without any common tribunal to which they may carry their differences; but they are
not the less bound to all the duties of neighbours, -- to mutual sincerity, justice,
and kind offices.
17. First, to sincerity. It is imagined, I know not why, that transactions between
states cannot be carried on without a great deal of intrigue and dissimulation. But
I am apt to think the nation that should venture to disclaim this narrow and crooked
policy, and should act and speak with a
noble frankness, would lose
nothing by the proceeding; honest intentions will bear to be told in plain language:
if our views upon each other are for our mutual advantage, the whole mystery of them
may be unfolded without danger; and if they are not, they will soon be detected by
practitioners as cunning and dextrous as ourselves.
18. Secondly, we are bound to justice -- not only in executing our engagements, but in
cultivating a spirit of moderation in our very wishes. Most contrary to this is a
species of patriotism, which consists in inverting the natural course of our
feelings, in being afraid of our neighbour's prosperity, and rejoicing at his
misfortunes. We should be ashamed to say, My neighbour's house was burnt down last
night, I am glad of it, I shall have more custom to my shop. My neighbour, thank
God, has broken his arm, I shall be sent for to attend the families in which he was
employed; -- but we are not ashamed to say, Our neighbours are weakening themselves
by a cruel war, we shall rise upon their ruins. We must act in opposition to the
peacemakers; we must hinder them from being reconciled, and blow the coals of
discord, otherwise their commerce will revive, and goods may remain in our crammed
warehouses. Our neighbours have bad laws and a weak government: Heaven forbid they
should change them! for then they might be more flourish-
ing than
ourselves. We have tracts of territory which we cannot people for ages, but we must
take great care that our neighbour does not get any footing there, for he would soon
make them very useful to him. -- Thus do we extend our grasping hands from east to
west, from pole to pole; and in our selfish monopolizing spirit are almost angry
that the sun should ripen any productions but for our markets, or the ocean bear any
vessels but our own upon its broad bosom. We are not ashamed to use that solecism in
terms natural enemies; as if nature, and not our own bad passions, made
us enemies; as if that relation, from which, in private life, flows confidence,
affection, endearing intercourse, were in nations only a signal for mutual
slaughter; and we were like animals of prey, solitarily ferocious, who look with a
jealous eye on every rival that intrudes within their range of devastation -- and
yet this language is heard in a christian country, and these detestable maxims veil
themselves under the semblance of virtue and public spirit. We have a golden rule,
if we will but apply it: it will measure great things as well as small; it will
measure as true at the Antipodes, or on the coast of Guinea, as in our native
fields. It is that universal standard of weights and measures which alone will
simplify all business: Do to others, as ye would that others should do unto you.
19. There is a notion which has a direct tendency to make us unjust, because it tends to
make us think God so; I mean the idea which most nations have entertained, that they
are the peculiar favourites of Heaven. We nourish our pride by fondly fancying that
we are the only nation for whom the providence of God exerts itself; the only nation
whose form of worship is agreeable to him; the only nation whom he has endowed with
a competent share of wisdom to frame wise laws and rational governments. Each nation
is to itself the fleece of Gideon, and drinks exclusively the dew of science: but as
God is no respecter of persons, so neither is he of nations; he has not, like
earthly monarchs, his favourites. There is a great deal even in our thanksgivings
which is exceptionable on this account; "God, we thank thee, that we are
not like other nations;" -- yet we freely load ourselves with every degree
of guilt; but then we like to consider ourselves as a child that is chidden, and
others as outcasts.
20. When the workings of these bad passions are swelled to their height by mutual
animosity and opposition, war ensues. War is a state in which all our feelings and
our duties suffer a total and strange inversion; a state in which
| Life dies, Death lives, and Nature breeds |
| Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things. |
21. A state in which it becomes our business to hurt
and annoy our neighbour
by every possible means; instead of cultivating, to destroy; instead of building, to
pull down; instead of peopling, to depopulate: a state in which we drink the tears,
and feed upon the misery of our fellow-creatures. Such a state, therefore, requires
the extremest necessity to justify it; it ought not to be the common and usual state
of society. As both parties cannot be in the right, there is always an equal chance
at least, to either of them, of being in the wrong; but as both parties may be to
blame, and most commonly are, the chance is very great indeed against its being
entered into from any adequate cause; yet war may be said to be, with regard to
nations, the sin which most easily besets them. We, my friends, in common with other
nations, have much guilt to repent of from this cause, and it ought to make a large
part of our humiliations on this day. When we carry our eyes back through the long
records of our history, we see wars of plunder, wars of conquest, wars of religion,
wars of pride, wars of succession, wars of idle speculation, wars of unjust
interference; and hardly among them one war of necessary self-defence in any of our
essential or very important interests. Of late years, indeed, we have known none of
the calamities of war in our own country but the wasteful expense of it; and sitting
aloof from those circumstance of personal provocation, which in some
measure might excuse its fury, we have calmly voted slaughter and merchandized
destruction -- so much blood and tears for so many rupees, or dollars, or ingots.
Our wars have been wars of cool calculating interest, as free from hatred as from
love of mankind; the passions which stir the blood have had no share in them. We
devote a certain number of men to perish on land and sea, and the rest of us sleep
sound, and, protected in our usual occupations, talk of the events of war as what
diversifies the flat uniformity of life.
22. We should, therefore, do well to translate this word war into language more
intelligible to us. When we pay our army and our navy estimates, let us set down --
so much for killing, so much for maiming, so much for making windows and orphans, so
much for bringing famine upon a district, so much for corrupting citizens and
subjects into spies and traitors, so much for ruining industrious tradesmen and
making bankrupts (of that species of distress at least, we can form an idea), so
much for letting loose the dæmons of fury rapine and lust within the fold
of cultivated society, and giving to the brutal ferocity of the most ferocious, its
full scope and range of invention. We shall by this means know what we have paid our
money for, whether we have made a good bargain, and whether the account is likely
to pass -- elsewhere. We must take in too, all those concomitant
circumstances which make war, considered as battle, the least part of itself,
pars minima sui. We must fix our eyes, not on the hero returning
with conquest, nor yet on the gallant officer dying in the bed of honour, -- the
subject of picture and of song, -- but on the private solider, forced into the
service, exhausted by camp-sickness and fatigue; pale, emaciated, crawling to an
hospital with the prospect of life, perhaps a long life, blasted, useless and
suffering. We must think of the uncounted tears of her who weeps alone, because the
only being who shared her sentiments is taken from her; no martial music sounds in
unison with her feelings; the long day passes, and he returns not. She does not shed
her sorrows over his grave, for she has never learnt whether he ever had one. If he
had returned, his exertions would not have been remembered individually, for he only
made a small imperceptible part of human machine, called a regiment. We must take in
the long sickness, which no glory soothes, occasioned by distress of mind, anxiety
and ruined fortunes. These are not fancy-pictures; and if you please to heighten
them, you can every one of you do it for yourselves. We must take in the
consequences, felt perhaps for ages, before a country which has been completely
desolated, lifts its head again; like a torrent of lava, its worst
mischief is not the first overwhelming ruin of towns and palaces, but the long
sterility to which it condemns the tract it has covered with its stream. Add the
danger to regular governments which are changed by war, sometimes to anarchy, and
sometimes to despotism. Add all these, and then let us think when a general
performing these exploits, is saluted with "Well done, good and faithful
servant," whether the plaudit is likely to be echoed in another place.
23. In this guilty business there is a circumstance which greatly aggravates its guilt,
and that is the impiety of calling upon the Divine Being to assist us in it. Almost
all nations have been in the habit of mixing with their bad passions a show of
religion, and of prefacing these their murders with prayers and the solemnities of
worship. When they send out their armies to desolate a country and destroy the fair
face of nature, they have the presumption to hope that the Sovereign of the Universe
will condescend to be their auxiliary, and to enter into their petty and despicable
contests. Their prayer, if put into plain language, would run thus: God of love,
father of all the families of the earth, we are going to tear in pieces our brethren
of mankind, but our strength is not equal to our fury, we beseech thee to assist us
in the work of slaughter. Go out, we pray thee, with
our fleets and
armies; we call them christian, and we have interwoven in our banners and the
decorations of our arms the symbols of a suffering religion, that we may fight under
the cross upon which our Saviour died. Whatever mischief we do, we shall do it in
they name; we hope, therefore, thou wilt protect us in it. Thou, who hast made of
one blood all the dwellers upon the earth, we trust thou wilt view us alone with
partial favour, and enable us to bring misery upon every other quarter of the globe.
-- Now if we really expect such prayers to be answered, we are the weakest, if not,
we are the most hypocritical of beings.
24. Formerly, this business was managed better, and had in it more show of reason and
probability. When mankind conceived of their gods as partaking of like passions with
themselves, they made a fair bargain with them on these occasions. Their chieftains,
they knew, were influenced by such motives, and they thought their gods might well
be so too. Go out with us, and you shall have a share of the spoil. Your altars
shall stream with the blood of so many noble captives; or you shall have a hecatomb
of fat oxen, or a golden tripod. Have we any thing of this kind to propose? Can we
make any thing like a handsome offer to the Almighty, to tempt him to enlist himself
on our side? Such things have been done
before now in the christian
world. Churches have been promised, and church lands, -- aye, and honestly paid too;
at other times silver shrines, incense, vestments, tapers, according to the
occasion. Oh how justly may the awful text be here applied! "He that
sitteth in the heavens shall laugh, the Lord shall have them in derision."
Christians! I shudder, lest in the earnestness of my heart I may have sinned, in
suffering such impious propositions to escape my lips. In short, while we must be
perfectly conscious in our own minds, that the generality of our wars are the
offspring of mere worldly ambition and interest, let us, if we must have wars, carry
them on as other such things are carried on; and not think of making a prayer to be
used before murder, any more than of composing prayers to be used before we enter a
gambling-house, or a place of licentious entertainment. Bad actions are made worse
by hypocrisy: an unjust war is in itself so bad a thing, that there is only one way
of making it worse, -- and that is, by mixing religion with it.
25. These, my friends, are some of the topics on which, standing as a nation this day
before the Lord, it will be proper that we should examine ourselves. There yet
remains a serious question: How far, as individuals, are we really answerable for
the guilt of national sins? For his own sins, it is evident, every man is wholly
answerable; for
those of aggregate body, it is as evident he can be
only answerable in part; and that portion and measure of iniquity, which falls to
his share, will be more or less, according as he has been more or less deeply
engaged in those transactions which are polluted with it. There is an active and
passive concurrence. We give our active concurrence to any measure, when we support
it by any voluntary exertion, or bestow on it any mark of approbation; when,
especially, we are the persons for whose sake, and for whose emolument, systems of
injustice or cruelty are carried on. The man of wealth and influence, who feeds and
fattens upon the miseries of his fellow-creatures; the man in power, who plans
abuses, or prevents their being swept away, is the very Jonas of the ship, and ought
this day to stand foremost in the rank of national penitents. But there is also a
passive concurrence; and this, in common cases, the community appears to have a
right to expect from us. Society could not exist, if every individual took it upon
himself not only to judge, but to act from his own judgement in those things in
which a nation acts collectively. The law, therefore, which is the expression of the
general will, seems to be a sufficient sanction for us, when, in obedience to its
authority, we pay taxes, and comply with injunctions, in support of measures which
we believe to be hurtful, and even iniqui- tous; and this, not because
the guilt of a bad action, as some fondly imagine, is diluted and washed away in the
guilt of multitudes; but because it is a necessary condition of political union,
that private will should be yielded up to the will of the public. We shall do well,
however, to bear in mind the principle on which we comply, that we may not go a step
beyond it.
26. There are, indeed, cases of such atrocity, that even this concurrence would be
criminal. What these are, it is impossible to specify; every man must draw the line
for himself. -- I suppose no one will pretend, that any maxims of military
subordination could justify the officers of Herod in the slaughter of the children
of Bethlehem; and certainly the orders of Louvois, in the Palatinate, and of
Catherine de' Medici, on the day of St. Bartholomew, were not less cruel. In our own
country, it has been the official duty of magistrates to burn alive quiet and
innocent subjects, who differed from them in opinion. Rather than fulfill such
duties, a man of integrity will prepare himself to suffer, and a christian knows
where such sufferings will be rewarded. -- The honourable delinquency of those who
have submitted to be the victims, rather than the instruments of injustice, has ever
been held worthy of praise and admiration.
27. But though, for the sake of peace and order,
we ought, in general
cases, to give our passive concurrence to measure which we may think wrong, peace
and order do not require us to give them the sanction of our approbation. On the
contrary, the more strictly we are bound to acquiesce, the more it is incumbent on
us to remonstrate. Every good man owes it to his country and to his own character,
to lift his voice against a ruinous war, an unequal tax, or an edict of persecution;
and to oppose them, temperately, but firmly, by all the means in his power: and
indeed this is the only way reformations can ever be brought about, or that
government can enjoy the advantage of general opinion.
28. This general opinion has, on a recent occasion, been sedulously called for, and most
of you have complied with the requisition. You, who have on this occasion given warm
and unqualified declarations of attachment to the existing systems, you have done
well -- You, who have denounced abuses, and declared your wishes for reform, you
have done well likewise, provided each of you has acted from the sincere, unbiassed
conviction of his own mind. But if you have done it lightly, and without judgement,
worse: if, by any improper influence, you have interfered with the liberty of your
neighbour, or your dependent, and caused him to act against his judgement and his
con-
science -- worse still. If the ferment of party has stirred up a
spirit of rancour and animosity among friends and townsmen, or introduced the poison
of distrust amidst the freedom and security of social life, we stand this day before
the Lord; and if our brother hath ought against us, "let us go first, and
be reconciled to our brother, and then come and offer our gift."
29. If any of us have disturbed or misled weaker minds by exaggerated danger and
affected alarm, and, practising on their credulity or their ignorance, have raised
passions which it would have better become us to have moderated -- or if, on the
other hand, we have cried, "Peace, peace, where there is no peace"
-- we are this day before the Lord, let shame and remorse for these practices make a
distinguished part of our national humiliation.
30. Repent this day, not only of the actual evil you have done, but of the evil of which
your actions have been the cause. -- If you slander a good man, you are answerable
for all the violence of which that slander may be the remote cause; if you raise
undue prejudices against any particular class or description of citizens, and they
suffer through the bad passions your misrepresentations have worked up against them,
you are answerable for the injury, though you have not wielded the bludgeon, or
applied the firebrand; if you place power in improper hands, you are answer-
able for the abuse of that power; if you oppose conciliatory measures,
you are answerable for the distress which more violent ones may produce. If you use
intemperate invectives and inflammatory declamation, you are answerable if others
shed blood. It is not sufficient, even if our intentions are pure; we must weigh the
tendencies of our actions, for we are answerable, in a degree at least, for those
remote consequences which, though we did not intend, we might have foreseen. If we
inculcate the plausible doctrine of unlimited confidence, we draw upon ourselves the
responsibility of all the future measures which that confidence may sanction. If we
introduce tenets leaning towards arbitrary power, the generations to come will have
a right to curse the folly of their forefathers, when they are reaping the bitter
fruits of them in future star-chambers, and courts of inquisitorial jurisdiction. If
the precious sands of our liberty are, perhaps, of themselves running out, how shall
we be justified to ourselves or to posterity, if, with a rash hand, we shake the
glass.
31. If, on the other hand, through vanity, a childish love of novelty, a spirit of
perverse opposition, or any motive still more sordidly selfish, we are precipitated
into measures which ought to be the result of the most serious consideration -- if
by "foolish talking or jestings, which are not
convenient," we have lessened the reverence due to constituted
authorities, or slackened the bonds which hold society together; ours is the blame,
when the hurricane is abroad in the world, and doing its work of mischief.
32. The course of events in this country has now, for a number of generations, for a long
reach, as it were, or the stream of time, run smooth, and our political duties have
been proportionally easy; but it may not always be so. A sudden bend may change the
direction of the current, and open scenes less calm. It becomes every man,
therefore, to examine his principles, whether they are of that firmness and texture
as suits the occasion he may have for them. If we want a light gondola to float upon
a summer lake, we look at the form and gliding; but if a vessel to steer through
storms, we examine the strength of the timbers, and the soundness of the bottom. We
want principles, not to figure in a book of ethics, or to delight us with
"grand and swelling sentiments;" but principles by which we may
act and by which we may suffer. Principles of benevolence, to dispose us to real
sacrifices; political principles, of practical utility; principles of religion, to
comfort and support us under all the trying vicissitudes we see around us, and which
we have not security that we shall be long exempt from. How many are there now
suffering under
such overwhelming distress, as, a short time ago, we
should have thought it was hardly within the verge of possibility that they should
experience! Above all, let us keep our hearts pure, and our hands clean. Whatever
part we take in public affairs, much will undoubtedly happen which we could by no
means foresee, and much which we shall not be able to justify; the only way,
therefore, by which we can avoid deep remorse, is to act with simplicity and
singleness of intention, and not to suffer ourselves to be warped, though by ever so
little, from the path which honour and conscience approve.
33. Principles, such as I have been recommending, are not the work of a day; they are not
to be acquired by any formal act of worship, or manual of devotion adapted to the
exigency; and it will little avail us, that we have stood here, as a nation, before
the Lord, if, individually, we do not remember that we are always so.
1. Although arch-conservative Edmund Burke had called the people who marched to Versailles to make demands of the French king "a swinish multitude," the more radical, revolutionary, opponents of Burke, Barbauld argues here, actually look down upon the multitude in insisting that meritocracy (attaining status through merit) replace aristocracy. Barbauld here calls that proposed "meritocracy" an "aristocracy of talents." [Editor] Back
Date: 1825
(revised 02/08/2005) Author: Anna Letitia Barbauld
(revised Zach Weir).
The editing on this page is copyrighted; this page may be used according to the rules of fair use.
