The fomenter of mischief is at least as culpable as he who puts it
in execution. A man may be guilty of murder, who never has handled a
sword or pulled a trigger, or lifted up his arm with any mischievous
weapon. There is a little incendiary called the tongue, which is more
venomous than a poisoned arrow, and more killing than a two-edged
sword. The moral of the Fable therefore is this, that if in any civil
insurrection, the persons taken in arms against the government deserve
to die, much more do they whose devilish tongues or pens gave birth
to the sedition, and excited the tumult. The Fable is also equally
applicable to those evil counsellors, who excite corrupt or wicked
governments to sap and undermine, and then to overturn the just laws
and liberties of a whole people; or involve them in cruel offensive
wars, in which they cause thousands upon thousands of swords to
be drawn, and whole armies of men to be cut in pieces, while they
themselves coolly sit out of danger, and calculate the gains they
derive from the wide-spreading desolation. War is the most horrid
custom that ever resulted from human wickedness, and is caused only by
the ignorance of the people, or the wickedness of governments.
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