p were to resolve upon reducing every income above that amount to their own standard, and appropriating the excess for public purposes. Could their resolution be justified? If not it must be a third time confessed that there is a law to which the popular voice must defer. What, then, is that law, if not the law of pure equity — the law of equal freedom? These restraints, which aU would put to the will of the majority, are exactly the restraints set up by that law. We deny the right of a majority to murder, to enslave, or to rob, simply because mui-der, enslaving, and robbery are violations of that law — violations too gross to be overlooked. But if great violations of it are wrong, so also are smaller ones. If the will of tlie many cannot supersede the first principle of morality in these cases, neither can it in any. So that, however insignificant the minority, and however trifling the proposed trespass against their rights, no such trespass is permissible.
When we have made our constitution purely democratic, thinks to himself the earnest reformer, we shall have brought government into harmony wdth absolute justice. Such a faith, though perhaps needful for the age, is a very erroneous one. By no process can coercion be made equitable. The freest form of government is only the least objectionable form. The rule of the many by the few we call tyranny; the rule of the few by the many is tyranny also; only of a less intense kind. " You shall do as we will, and not as you will," is in either case the declaration; and if the hundred make it to the ninety-nine, instead of the ninety-nine to the hundred, it is only a fraction less immoral Of two such parties, whichever fulfils this declaration necessarily breaks the law of equal fi-eedom: the only difference being that by the one it is broken in the persons of ninety-nine, whilst by the other it is broken in the persons of a hundred. And the merit of the democratic form of government consists solely in this, that it trespasses against the smallest number.
The very existence of majorities and minorities is indicative of an immoral state. The man whose character hannonizes with the moral law, we found to be one who can obtain complete happiness without diminishing the happiness of Ms fellows (Chap. III.). But the enactment of public arrangements by vote implies a society consisting of men otherwise constituted — impUes that the desires of some cannot be satisfied without sacrificing the desires of others — implies that in the pursuit of their happiness the majority inflict a certain amount of?<whappiness on the minority — impUes, therefore, organic immorality. Thus, from another point of view, we again perceive that even in its most equitable form it is impossible for government to dissociate itself from evil; and further, that unless the right to ignore the state is recognised, its acts must be essentially criminal.
That a man is free to abandon the benefits and throw off the burdens of citizenship, may indeed be inferred from the admissions of existing authorities and of current opinion. Unprepared as they probably are for so extreme a doctrine as the one here maintained, the radicals of our day j'et unwittingly profess their behef in a maxim which obviously embodies this doctrine. Do we not continually hear them quote Blackstone's assertion that " no subject of England can be constrained to pay any aids or taxes even for the defence of the realm or the support of government, but such as are imposed by his own consent, or that of his representative in parliament? " And what does this mean? It means, say they, that every man should have a vote. True: but it means much more. If there is any sense in words it is a distinct enunciation of the very right now contended for. In affirming that a man may not be taxed unless he has directly or indirectly given his consent, it affirms that he may refuse to be so taxed; and to refuse to be taxed, is to cut aU connection with the state. Perhaps it will be said that this consent is not a specific, but a general one, and that the citizen is understood to have assented to everything his representative may do, when he voted for him. But suppose he did not •212 THE RIGHT TO IGNORE THE STATE.
vote for him; imd on tlie contrary did all in his power to get elected some one holding opposite views — what then? The reply will probably be that^ by taking part in such an election, he tacitly agreed to abide by the decision of the majority. And how if he did not vote at all? Why then he cannot justly complain of any tax, seeing that he made no protest against its imposition. So, cuiiously enough, it seems that he gave his consent in whatever way he acted — whether he said yes, whether he said no, or whether he remained neuter! A rather awkward doctrine this. Here stands an unfortunate citizen who is asked if he will pay money for a certain proffered advantage; and whether he employs the only means of expressing his refusal or does not employ it, we are told that he practically agrees; if only the number of others who agree is greater than the number of those who dissent. And thus we are introduced to the novel principle that A's consent to a thing is not determined by what A says, but by what B may happen to say I It is for those who quote Blackstone to choose between tliis absurdity and the doctiine above set forth. Either his maxim implies the right to ignore the state, or it is sheer nonsense.
There is a strange heterogeneity in our political faiths. Systems that have had their day, and are beginning here and there to let the dayliglit through, are patched with modem notions utterly unlike in quality and colour; and men gravely display these systems, wear them, and walk. about in tliem, quite unconscious of their grotesqueness. This transition state of ours, partaking as it does equally of the past and the future, breeds hybrid theories exhibiting the oddest union of bygone despotism and coming freedom. - Here are types of the old organization curiously disguised by germs of the new— peculiarities sliowing adaptation to a preceding state modified by rudiments that prophecy of something to come— making altogether so chaotic a mixture of relationships that there is no saj'ing to what class these births of the age should be referred.
As ideas must of necessity bear the stamp of the time, it is useless to lament the contentment with which these incongruous beliefs are held. Otherwise it would seem unfortunate that men do not pursue to the end the trains of reasoning which have led to these partial modifications. In the present case, for example, consistency would force them to admit that, on other points besides the one just noticed, they hold opinions and use arguments in which the right to ignore the state is involved.
For what is the meaning of Dissent? The time was when a man's faith and his mode of worship were as much determinable by law as his secular acts; and, according to provisions extant in our statute-book, are so still. Thanks to the growth of a Protestant spirit, however, we have ignored the state in this matter — wholly in theory, and partly in practice. But how have we done so? By assuming an attitude which, if consistently maintained, implies a right to ignore the state entirely. Observe the positions of the two parties. " This is your creed,'' says the legislator; " you must believe and openly profess what is here set down for you." " I shall not do anything of the kind," answers the nonconformist; " I will go to prison rather." " Your religious ordinances," pursues the legislator, " shall be such as we have prescribed. You shall attend the churches we have endowed, and adopt the ceremonies used in them." " Nothing shall induce me to do so," is the reply; " I altogether deny your power to dictate to me in such matters, and mean to resist to the uttermost." "Lastly," adds the legislator, "we shall require you to pay such sums of money towards the support of these religious institutions, as we may see fit to ask.'
" Not a farthing Avill you have from me," exclaims our sturdy Independent: "even did I believe in the doctrines of your church (which I do not), I should still rebel against your interference; and if you take my property, it shall be by force and under protest."
What now does this proceeding amount to when regarded in the abstract? It amounts to an assertion by the individual of the right to exercise one of his faculties — the religious sentiment— -without let or hindrance, and with no Umit save that set up by the equal claims of others. And what is meant by ignoring the state? Simply an assertion of the right similarly to exercise all the faculties. The one is just an expansion of the other — rests on the same footing with the other — must stand or faU with the other. Men do indeed speak of civil and religious liberty as different things: but the distinction is quite arbitrary'. They are parts of the same whole and cannot philosophically be separated.
"Yes they can," interposes an objector; "assertion of the one is imperative as being a rehgious duty. The liberty to worship God in the way that seems to him right, is a hberty without which a man cannot fulfil what he believes to be Divine commands, and therefore conscience requires him to maintain it." True enough; but how if the same can be assertod of all other liberty? How if maintenance of this also turns out to be a matter of conscience? Have we not seen that human happiness is the Divine will — that only bv exercising our faculties is this happiness obtainable — and that it is impossible to exercise them without freedom? (Chap. IV.) And if this freedom for the exercise of faculties is a condition without which the Divine will cannot be fulfilled, the preservation of it is, by our objector's own showing, a duty. Or, in other words, it appeai-s not only that the maintenance of hberty of action may be a point of conscience, but that it ought to be one. And thus we are clearly shown that the claims to ignore the state in rehgious and in secular matters ai-e in essence identical.
The other reason commonly assigned for nonconformity, admits of similar treatment. Besides resisting state dictation m the abstract, the dissenter resists it from disapprobation of the doctrines taught. No legislative injunction will make him adopt what he considers an eiToneous behef; and, bearing in mmd his duty towards his fellow-men, he refuses to help THE RIGHT TO IGNOllE THE STATE. 215 through the medium of his purse in disseminating this erroneous heUef. The position is perfectly intelhgible. But it is one which either commits its adherents to civil nonconformity also, or leaves them in a dilemma. For why do they refuse to he instrumental in spreading error? Because error is adverse to human happiness. And on what ground is any piece of secular legislation disapproved? For the same reason — because thought adverse to human happiness. How then can it he shown that the state ought to be resisted in the one case and not in the other? Will any one deliberately assert that if a government demands money from us to aid in teaching what we think will produce evil, we ought to refuse it; but that if the money is for the purpose of doing what we think will produce evil, we ought not to refuse it? Yet, such is the hopeful proposition which those have to maintain who recognise the right to ignore the state in rehgious matters, but deny it in civil matters.
The substance of this chapter once more reminds us of the incongruity between a perfect law and an imperfect state. The practicabihty of the principle here laid down varies directly as social morality. In a thoroughly vicious community its admission would be productive of anarchy. In a completely virtuous one its admission will be both innocuous and inevitable. Progress towards a condition of social health — a condition, that is, in which the remedial measm-es of legislation will no longer be needed, is progress towards a condition in which those remedial measures will be cast aside, and the authority prescribing them disregarded. The two changes are of necessity co-ordinate. That moral sense whose supremacy will make society haimonious and government unnecessary, is the same moral sense which will then make each man assert his freedom even to the extent of ignoring the state — is the same moral sense which, by deterring the majority from coercing the minority, will eventually render government impossible.
And as wliat are merely different manifestations of the same sentiment must bear a constant ratio to each other, the tendency to repudiate governments will increase only at the same rate that governments become needless.
Let not any be alarmed, therefore, at the promulgation of the foregoing doctrine. There are many changes yet to be passed through before it can begin to exercise much influence. Probably a long time will elapse before the right to ignore the state will be generally admitted, even in theory. It will be still longer before it receives legislative recognition. And even then there will be plenty of checks upon the premature exercise of it. A sharp experience will sufficiently instruct those who may too soon abandon legal protection. Whilst, in the majority of men, there is such a love of tried arrangements, and so great a dread of experiments, that they will probably not act upon this right until long after it is safe to do so.
CHAPTER XX.
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE *.
Of the several conclusions deducible from the law of equal freedom there are few more manifest or more generally agreed to than this, that all members of a community have like claims to political power. If evei-y man has freedom to do all that he Avills, provided he infringes not the equal fi-eedom of any other man, then each is free to exercise the same authority in legislation as his fellows; and no individual or class can exercise greater authority than the rest without \iolating the law.
Evidently, therefore, a purely democratic government is the only one which is morally admissible — is the only one that is not intrinsically criminal. As lately shown, no government can have any ethical authority. The highest form it can assume is that in which the moral law remains passive with regard to it — tolerates it — no longer protests against it. The first condition of that form is that citizenship shall be voluntary; the second — that it shall confer equal privileges.
It is a tolerably well- ascertained fact that men are stiU selfish. And that beings answering to this epithet will employ the power ^ The immediate interest of the subject will sufficiently explain the lenfi:th to which this chapter is extended; and if the style of argument used in it is somewhat too popular for a work like the present, the same consideration must serve as an excuse. Two of the sections have already appeared in print.
placed in their hands for their omi advantage is self-evident. Directly or indii-ectly, either by hook or by crook, if not openly, then in secret, their private ends will be served. Granting the proposition that men are selfish, we cannot avoid the corollary, that those who possess authority will, if pennitted, use it for selfish purposes.
Should any one need facts in proof of this, he may find them at every page in the nearest volume of history. Under the head— ^Monarchy, he will read of insatiable cravings after more territory; of confiscations of the subjects' property; of justice sold to the liighest bidder; of continued debasements of coinage; and of a greediness which could even descend to share the gains of prostitutes.
He will find Feudalism exemplifying the same spirit by the cruelties inflicted upon serfs; by the right of private war; by the predatory incursions of borderers; by robberies practised on Jews; and by the extortionate tribute wrung from burghers — all of them illustrations of that motto, so characteristic of the system, " Thou shalt want ere I want."
Does he seek like evidence in the conduct of later aristocracies? He may discover it in every state in Europe: in Spain, where the lands of nobles and clergy were long exempted from direct taxation; in Hungary, where, until lately, men of rank were fi-ee of ail turnpikes, and only the mercantile and working classes paid; in France, before the first revolution, where the tiers-etat had to bear all the state burdens; in Scotland, where less than two centuries ago it was the custom of lairds to kidnap tlie common people, and export them as slaves; in Ireland, where at the rebellion a band of usurping landowners hunted and shot the Catholics as they would game, for daring to claim their own.
If more proofs are wanted that power will be made to sei-ve the purposes of its possessors, Enghsh legislation can furnish many such. Take, for example, the significantly named " Black Act " (9th of George I.), which declares that any one disguised and in possession of an ofiensive weapon " appearino' in any waiTeu, or place where hares or conies have been, or shall be usually kept, and being thereof duly convicted, shall be adjudged guilty of felony, and shall suffer death, as in cases of felony, without benefit of clergy." Instance again the Inclosiu'e Laws, by which commons were divided amongst the neighbouring landowners, in the ratios of their holdings, regardless of the claims of the poor cottagers. Notice also the manoeuvre by which the land tax has been kept stationary, or has even decreased, whilst other taxes have so enormously increased. Add to these the private monopoUes (obtained from the King for " a consideration "), the perversion of the funds of public schools, the manufacture of places, and pensions.
Nor is the disposition to use power for private ends less manifest in our own day. It shows itself in the assertion that an electoral system should give a preponderance to the landed interest. We see it in the legislation which relieves fanners from sundry assessed taxes, that they may be enabled to pay more rent. It is palpably indicated in the Game Laws. The conduct of the squire, who gets his mansion rated at one-third of its value, bears witness to it. It appears in the law enabling a landlord to anticipate other creditors, and to obtain bis rent by immediate seizure of his tenant's property. We are reminded of it by the often-mentioned legacy and probate duties. It is imphed by the fact that whilst no one dreams of compensating the discharged workman, gentlemen sinecuiists must have their "vested interests" bought up if their offices are abolished. In the tracts of the Anti-Corn Law League it received abundant illustration. It is seen in the votes of the hundred and fifty military and naval members of Parliament. And lastly, we find this self-seeking of those in authority creeps out, even in the doings of the "Right Reverend Fathers in God " forming the Ecclesiastical Commission, who have appropriated, for the embellishment of their own palaces, funds entrusted to them for the benefit of the Church.
But it is needless to accumulate illustrations. Though every historian the world has seen should bo subpoened as a 220 THE CONSTITUTION OK THE STATE.
witness, the fact could not be rendered one whit more certain than it is akeady. Why ask whether those in power have sought their own advantage in preference to that of others? With human nature as we know it, they must have done so. It is tliis same tendency in men to pursue gratification at the expense of their neighbours that renders government needful. Were we not selfish, legislative restraint would be unnecessary. Evidently, then, the very existence of a state- authority proves that irresponsible rulers will sacrifice the public good to their personal benefit; all solemn promises, specious professions, and carefully-arranged checks and safeguards, notwithstanding.
If, therefore, class-legislation is the inevitable consequence of class-power, there is no escape from the conclusion that the interest of the wJiole society can be secured, only by giving power into the hands of the whole people.
Against the position tliat to ensure justice to the nation at large all its members must be endowed with like powers, it is indeed urged that, as tlieworldng classes constitute the majority, to endow all with Uke powers, is practically to make the working classes supreme. And it will probably be added that by virtue of this same self-seeking tendency just insisted upon, legislation in their hands would inevitably be twisted to seiTe the ends of labour regardless of the claims of property.
Of course those who raise this objection do not wish to insinuate that the people would use their power after the fashion of brigands. Although in the old Norman day, when the sacking and burning of towns by neighbouring nobles was not unfirequent, a change to popular rule involved retaliatory attacks upon the strongholds of these feudal buccaneers, yet we may fairly conclude that the increased social morality which deters modern aristocracies from direct robbery of the people, would also prevent die people from inflicting any direct injury upon them. The danger this objection points to — the only danger to he rationally feared — is that the same insensible bias by which our present rulers are swayed, would lead the working classes to sacrifice the rights of the rich on the altar of their own desires — would give rise to a code of laws favouring poverty at the expense of wealth.
Even were there no answer to this, the evidence would still preponderate in favour of popular enfranchisement. For what at the utmost does the argument amount to? Just this: — that the few must continue to trespass against the many, lest the many should trespass against the few. The well fed, the luxuriously housed and clothed, the placemen and pensioners, may perhaps think it better that the masses should suffer for their benefit (as they do) than that they should suffer for the benefit of the masses (as they might). But would a just arbitrator say this? Would he not say, on the contrary, that even if their respective members were blessed with equal advantages, the minority ought to be sacrificed rather than the majority; but that as the most numerous are at the same time the least favoured, their claim becomes still more imperative. Surely, if one of the two parties must submit to injustice, it ought to be the rich hundreds, and not the poor thousands.
The foregoing objection, however, is not so sound as it looks. It is one thing for a comparatively small class to unite in the pursuit of a common advantage, and it is another thing for a dispersed multitude to do so. Some thousands of individuals having identical interests, moving together in the same circle, brought up with like prejudices, educated in one creed, hound together by family ties, and meeting annually in the same city, may easily enough combine for the obtainment of a desired object. Bui for half a dozen millions of working men, distributed over a vast area, engaged in various occupations, belonging to different religious sects, and divided into two totally distinct bodies, the one imbued with thefeeUngs and theories of town life, the other retaining aU those prejudices of the past which yet linger in the country — for these to act with unanimity is scarcely possible. Their mass is too great, too incongnioiis, too scattered, for effective combination. We have current proof of this. The Chartist agitation shows us men, who, during the last twenty years, have gradually imbibed ideas of political freedom — men who have been irritated by a sense of injustice — men who have been slighted by their fellow-citizens — men who have been suffering daily privations — men, therefore, who have had an accumulated stimulus to unite in obtaining what they feel themselves entitled to, and what they see reason to beheve would greatly beneiit them. And how have they prospered in the attempt to carry their point? Disputes, divisions, apathy, adverse influences of every kind, have joined to produce repeated failures. Xow if, with the aid of that enthusiasm which a righteous cause always inspires, the masses have not attained to that unity of action needful for the accompUsliment of their object, much less would they be able successfully to unite were that object a dishonest one.
Whoever demui's to the enfranchisement of the working men on tlie ground that they are immoral, is bound to point out a constituency wliich is not immoral. When it is alleged that the venaUty of the people renders them unfit for the possession of votes, it is assumed that some class not chargeable with venaUty may be found. But no such class exists. Bring them all to trial and not a single section of the community would obtain a verdict of " not guilty."
Were the shopkeepers put upon their examination, how would they excuse their trade practices? Is it moral to put potatoes and alum in bread; to add salt, tobacco, and colchicum to beer; to mix lard with butter; to manufacture milk in vai-ious known and unknown ways; to adulterate oils, chemicals, colours, wines— in short, everything capable of adulteration? Does the existence of inspectors of weights and measures indicate morality? Or is it honest to sell over the counter, goods whose quality is inferior to that of the samples ticketed in the window?
Did the manufacturers make any pretension to purity, they might have to encounter some awkward hints as to the practice of tearing up old rags into shoddy to be worked into cloth along with new wool. Disagreeable questions might be asked concerning the proportion of cotton woven into some fabrics, pretended to be wholly of silk. The piracy of patterns, too, would be a deUcate subject. And the practice of using gypsum to increase the weight and substance of paper, could hardly be defended on the principles of the Decalogue.
Not less discreditable would be the sentence deserved by the agriculturists. In spite of the refining effects which poets ascribe to intercourse with nature, it is nevertheless an undoubted fact that the farmers — in Dorsetshire, at least — have been convicted of paying their labourers in damaged wheat, charged at the full price — a habit not altogether conscientious. It is matter of histoiy, too, that before the enactment of the New Poor Law, it was in many districts the custom to give farm servants but half wages; the remainder being made up to them out of the poor-rates, over which their masters exercised the chief control. And to these samples of morality the transactions of the cattle-market and the horse-fair would probably furnish fit companions.
Neither in such a scratiny would the professions escape unscathed. Who can hear the word " venaUty " without straightway thinking of the law? Attorneys already stand in too bad repute to need their sins hinting at; and even the gentlemen of the bar are not without reproach. The attempt to make a known felon appear innocent denotes rather confused ideas of right and wrong. Then their habit of taking fees to plead in a cause, "which other engagements will not permit them to attend, and keeping the pay, although they do not perform the work, scarcely impUes that honesty deemed so requisite for the proper use of political power.
Our members of Parliament, too, were the gauntlet token up on their behalf, would come off but indifferently. That arrangement which places them beyond the reach of their creditors, is hardly consistent with the moral law; nor does it imply the nicest sense of honour. And then that disease of the representative system — bribery; ought the rich to escape all the odium attaching to it — should cdl the disgrace fall upon the poor electors?
Nor can those who move in titled circles boast of superior integrity. In the trickeries of the turf, and in the midnight scenes at gaming-houses, the denizens of Mayfair and Belgravia play a sufficiently conspicuous part. The Huntingtower bankruptcy was not to the credit of the caste, any more than are those acts of outlawry to which, from time to time, members of it are subjected. And did the aristocracy possess strict notions -of equity it is probable that a httle more respect would be shown by them to the claims of their tradesmen, than is indicated by their proverbially bad character as paymasters.
Nay, even our highest officers of state participate in the general contamination. Did not the Mazzini affair show some laxity of principle? Was it nothing, as the Westminster Review put it, to teach that theft is permissible when officials wish to steal information from a letter — that lying is permissible if they desire to conceal the theft by re- sealing that letter — that forgery is permissible for the puqsose of counterfeiting seals? And then our present ministers — are they any better than their predecessors? If so, how shall we explain away the garbling of some of the West Indian despatches, and the suppression of others \ No, no; let not any "one oppose the enfranchisement of tlae people on the score of their immorality, lest he be put to the blush by the exposure of his own offences, or the offences of his class. Let him that is guiltless cast the first stone. Vice, dishonest)', venality, pervade all ranks; and if political power must be denied to working men because they are corrupt, it must be denied to all classes whatever for the same reason.
Some indeed allege that the masses are more vicious than the rest of the community. But those who express this opinion arrive at it very illogically. They glance at assize proceedings, read through the names and occupations in the calendar of prisoners, skim over statistics of crime, and because they meet with an immense preponderance of vagrants, fannservants, bricklayers, drovers, bargemen, porters, factory hands, and the like, they forthwith set down the peasant and artizan class as greatly inferior in moral character to every other class. They take no account of the fact, that in number, the labouring population is at least six times all the rest put together. They do not inquire whether, if the cases that appear in the police sheets of swindling advertisers, of false-ticketing tradesmen, of embezzling clerks, of young gentlemen concerned in drunken sprees, attacks on the police, insults to women, and so on, were multiplied by six, they would not approach in number the otlier cases daily reported. Were this done, however — ■ were the crimes committed by each class reduced to a percentage upon the size of that class, there would be found much less inequality than is commonly thought to exist.
Moreover, it should be remembered that the immorahty of the middle and upper ranks assumes a different guise from that worn by the vices of the poor. Men comparatively well off are not likely to be guilty of those grosser offences seen amongst the lower orders, for their circumstances remove them almost beyond temptation to these. But the bad propensities may and do exist in full force notwithstanding; and enough of their workings may any day be seen in courts of law. Fraudulent bankruptcies, actions for debt, suits for the restitution of usurped rights, quarrels about wiUs — all these show the activity of passions which, under other conditions, might have produced acts technically called crimes. Men who, by legal chicanery, cheat others out of thek property, or who refuse to discharge the claims justly made upon them until forced by Q •220 THE CONSTITDTION OF THE STATE.
law, are men who, in a lower walk of life, would have picked pockets or robbed hen-roosts. We must measure morality by motives, not by deeds. And if we thus estimate the characters of the trading and richer grades, taking into account also the consideration above adverted to — number — we shall find that the data on the strength of which we attribute especial immorality to the labouring classes are by no means sufficient.