The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-03-28


sirous to use it, we are content that they
should succeed, provided that they accept the
principles on which it is based. The duty of
the country is now to make sure that the Re-
construction law is faithfully executed, that
the negroes shall vote, and we shall rejoice in
that triumph of our principles even if every
colored man in the South should vote the
Democratic ticket. We do not degrade a prin-
ciple by advocating it as policy.
-
Is Rebellion Ever JustIhabIe In a Re-
Hon, the World
The Tines contends that it is not It's argu-
ment, if we correctly apprehend it, is, in sub
stance that inasmuch as the aggrieved are
represented they have a remedy in the cleo
tions if they are majority, while, if they are
minority, they are bound to submit. We do
not undertake to define the iustifable causes
of rebellion, since they involve question of
degree, and therefore do not admit of very
exact statement. But whatever may be the
amount of oppression which justifes armed
resistance, we cannot see why it should make
any difference, in the moral aspect of the
question, whether the oppressors be few or
many. The majority in a republic will never
rebel, since they have an easier and less
hazardous mode of attaining their wishes
When minorites rebel they do so with the
odds against them: and it is only deep sense
of wrong, or a firm confidence in the Justice of
their cause, that can induce them to take the
risks. Maiorities are but aggregates of indi-
vidual men; and as individual men NAV be
unjust and tyrannical majorties composed of
such individuals may be so too. The absolute
will of majority is even more intolerable
than the absolute will of a monarch, since it
may consist of infinite strands of individual
tyranny twisted together into one tremendous
cable.
Republican government is, to be sure, the
government Of majorities; but it quickly de-
generates into an engine Of oppression unless
the will of the majority is restrained by a fixed
constitution Constitutions are not meant for
the protection of maiOrities, who, in q repub-
lcan government, can always protect them
selves through the ballot-box, but for the pro-
lection of minOrities against the tyranny of
the majority. So long as the majority, or the
government which is their agent, respects the
limits thus set to its authority, rebellions can
never be justiliable if the Constitution is just
and wise. But if a hOt-headed and over
bearing majority refuse to be bound by the
constitution, and erect their own will into the
supreme law, will the Times tell us what
would, in that case, be the eilectual means of
resisting oppression and redressing injustice?
The government of an unrestrained majority
is the worst of all possible tyrannies When
all constitutional restraints are cast off and
scohed at, what are the minority to do For
our part we do not hesitate to affirm that no
people are fit for republican government who
have not in their composition q spice of the
rebel. The knowledge that the majority will
resist if injured is a salutary restraint on the
governing power. 1t was Jefferson's opinion
that there ought to be at least one rebellion
in a generation, to purify the political at
mosphere, and remind rulers of the necessity
of moderation.
The Times notion that rebellion is never
justiiable under a representative Government,
is one of those hasty halt-thOughts caught up
by looking at subject in one of its aspects, in
stead of a comprehensive survey. The Fede-
raj Constitution itself indirectly recognizes the
right of rebellion in extreme cases. 1t de-
clares that ''the right of the people to keep
and bear arms shall not be infringed." The
right of the people to bear arms implies their
right to use arms, otherwise the guarantee
would be as idle as a right to keep guns with
out triggers. 1t is a good thing for the people
to have arms in their hands to use, in the last
resort, against oppression; and 1t is good
thing for Governments to know that the people
possess arms of which this use can be made.
Whether any particular occasion iustifes re-
sistance, is quite a different question from
whether resistance is ever permissible. The
Times, by intoxicating the slavish doctrine that
the tyranny of the majority is never to be re-
sisted, precludes all consideration of particular
grievances as a ground of rebellion. If rebel
lion is necer permissible in a republic, it cannot
be permissible against this or that wrong, how
ever tlagrant and intolerable.
This slavish doctrine is new in American
politics, but it is a natural enough corollary
from the high handed action of the Govern
ment during the last six years. All former
eXpounders of our institutions have recognized
the right of rebellion. The EederaliSt, for eX-
ample, in discussing the means of the State to
resist Federal encroachments, gives promi-
nent place to physical fcrce and winds up in
this spirited strain of truly republican elo-
quence:-"Let us not insult the free and gal
liant citizens of America with the supposition
that they would be less able to defend the
right of which they would be in actual posses
sion, than the debased subjects of arbitrary
power would be to rescue theirs from the
hands of their oppressors. Let us rather no
longer insult them with the suppositiOn that
they can ever reduce themselves to the neces-
sity of making the experiment by blind
submission to the long train of insidious
measures which must precede and produce
it."
Mr.. Webster, in both of his great speeches
against nullifcation-that in reply to Hayne
and that in reply to Calhoun Xplicitly and
| fully acknowledged the right of rebellion as
unquestonable, as did also Mr.. Clay in con-
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