I shall only take such an office as brings me into no connection
with slavery.
ANSWER. Government is a whole; unless each in his circle aids his
next neighbor, the machine will stand still. The Senator does not
himself return the fugitive slave, but he appoints the Marshal,
whose duty it is to do so. The State representative does not himself
appoint the Judge who signs the warrant for the slave's recapture,
but he chooses the United States Senator who does appoint that Judge.
The elector does not himself order out the militia to resist
"domestic violence," but he elects the President, whose duty requires,
that a case occurring, he should do so.
To suppose that each of these may do that part of his duty that
suits him, and leave the rest undone, is _practical anarchy_. It is
bringing ourselves precisely to that state which the Hebrew describes.
"In those days there was no king in Israel, but each man did what
was right in his own eyes." This is all consistent in us, who hold
that man is to do right, even if anarchy follows. How absurd to set
up such a scheme, and miscall it a _government_,--where nobody
governs, but everybody does as he pleases.