There never existed any other
government against which treason was so easy, and could defend itself by
such plausible arguments, as against that of the United States. The
anomaly of two allegiances (of which that of the State comes nearest home
to a man's feelings, and includes the altar and the hearth, while the
General Government claims his devotion only to an airy mode of law, and
has no symbol but a flag) is exceedingly mischievous in this point of
view; for it has converted crowds of honest people into traitors, who
seem to themselves not merely innocent but patriotic, and who die for a
bad cause with as quiet a conscience as if it were the best. In the vast
extent of our country,--too vast by far to be taken into one small human
heart,--we inevitably limit to our own State, or, at farthest, to our own
section, that sentiment of physical love for the soil which renders an
Englishman, for example, so intensely sensitive to the dignity and
well-being of his little island, that one hostile foot, treading anywhere
upon it, would make a bruise on each individual breast. If a man loves
his individual State, therefore, and is content to be ruined with her,
let us shoot him if we can, but allow him an honorable burial in the soil
he fights for.
Pages:
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151