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Show - "' ~(' ·~ -· . '\~ ... 144 the Jivinrr act of the People. It has no other. When a; individual suspends the operation of Law, resists its established ministers, and forcibly substitutes for it his own will, he is a usurper and rebel. The same guilt attaches to a combination of individuals. These, whether many or few, in forcibly superseding public law and establishing their own, rise up against the People, as truly as · ~ smgle usurper. The People should assert its msulted majesty, its menaced sovereignty, in one case as decidedly as in the other. The difference betw~en· the mob and the indil'idual is, that the usurpalion· of the latter has a permanence not easily given to the tumultuary movements of the former. The distinction is a weighty one. Little importance is due to sudden bursts of the populace, because they so soon pass away. But when mobs are organized, as in the French Revolution, or when they are deliberately resolved on and systematically resorted to, as the means :or putting down an odious party, they lose this apology. A conspiracy exist<; arrainst the Sovereianty of the People, and ought t~ be suppressed, a~ among the chief evils of the state. In this part of the country our abhorrence ol mebs is lessened by the fact, that they were thought to do good service in the beginning of the Revolution. They probably were useful then ; and why ? The work of that day was. Revolution. 145 To subvert a govemment was the fearful task to which our fathers thought themselves summoned. Theit· duty they believed was Insurrection. In such a work mobs had their place. The government of the State was in the hands of its foes. The P eople could not use the regular organs of administration, for these were held and employed by the poweJ' which they 'wished to crush. Violent, irregular efiorts belonged to that day of convulsion. To resist and subvert institutions is the very work of mobs ; and when these institutions arc popular, when their sole end is to express and execute the will of the People, then mobs are rebellion against the P eople, and as such should be understood and suppressed. A people is never more insulted than when a mob takes its name. Abolition must not be put down by lawless force. The attempt so to destroy it ought to fail. Such attempts place abolitionism on a new ground. They make it, not the cause of a few enthusiast~, but the cause of freedom. They identify it with all our rights and popular institutions. If the Constitution and the laws cannot put it down, it must st~nd ; and he who attempts its overthrow by lawless fo,·ce is a rebel and usurper. The Supremacy of Law and the Sovereignty of the People are one and indivisible. To touch the one is to violate the other. This should be laid down as a first principle, an axiom, a fundamental article of faith which 10 |