THE PASSIVELY GOOD.
There were a few of the citizens of Jackson County who did not
take part in these shameful proceedings against The Church. They
were friendly disposed towards the saints, but lacked the courage
to speak out boldly in their defense, or take up arms to protect
suffering innocence. This is often the case with the passively good;
with "conservative" citizens. They have no sympathy with rioters,
or with mob lawlessness. They are ready to say that such conduct is
outrageous, and even a menace to free institutions, and incompatible
with freedom; but further than this they do not go. Their conception
of good citizenship does not lead them to be active in resisting
aggressions upon the liberties of others; especially when those
"others" are people with whom they have but little sympathy. They seem
not to have learned that those who would preserve their own rights and
freedom must insist upon the rights and liberty of every man being
respected and assured. It is vain, and especially in a republic is
it vain, for any man to suppose that the freedom of any citizen or
class of citizens, however humble or even unpopular they may be, can
be infringed without endangering the rights and freedom of all. Many
otherwise, good citizens of the Republic--simple and fundamental to the
preservation of rights and freedom as is this principle--seem so far
to fail in appreciation of it, that they stand by while the rights of
others are invaded, and sometimes swept away, without making so much
as a protest against the injustice. They are content if only their own
personal and immediate rights are not directly assailed. The result is
that an active minority--often, in fact, an insignificant part of the
community, and contemptible of character--are permitted to perpetrate
outrages upon worthy though it may be unpopular citizens, that bring
disgrace upon the State, and endanger liberty itself. Such was the
case in the present instance with those who were not in sympathy with
the mob; and yet so far were they from standing up for the rights of
those whom they confessed were unjustly assailed, that they advised the
saints to leave the State immediately, as the wounding of the young
man on the night of the 2nd had enraged the whole county against them;
and it was a common expression among the mob that Monday (the 4th of
November), would be a "bloody day."