Graham R (Ed.) - Anarchism - A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas Volume One - From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE to 1939)

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ANARCHISM
inflicting on them some severe and memorable retribution." Upon this statement it
is particularly to be observed that there will be oppressors as long as there are individuals
inclined, either from perverseness, or rooted and obstinate prejudice, to take
party with the oppressor. We have therefore to terrifY not only the man of crooked
ambition but all those who would support him, either from a corrupt motive, or a
well-intended error. Thus, we propose to make men free; and the method we adopt is
to influence them, more rigorously than ever, by the fear of punishment. We say that
government has usurped too much, and we organize a government tenfold more encroaching
in its principles and terrible in its proceedings. Is slavery the best project
that can be devised for making men free Is a display of terror the readiest mode for
rendering them fearless, independent and enterprising
During a period of revolution, enquiry, and all those patient speculations to
which mankind are indebted for their greatest improvements, are suspended. Such
speculations demand a period of security and permanence; they can scarcely be pursued
when men cannot foresee what shall happen tomorrow, and the most astonishing
vicissitudes are affairs of perpetual recurrence. Such speculations demand
leisure, and a tranquil and dispassionate temper; they can scarcely be pursued when
all the passions of man are afloat, and we are hourly under the strongest impressions
of fear and hope. apprehension and desire, dejection and triumph ...
The only method according to which social improvements can be carried on,
with sufficient prospect of an auspicious event, is when the improvement of our institutions
advances in ajust proportion to the illumination ofthe public understanding.
There is a condition of polilicai sociery best adapted to every different stage of individual
improvement. The more nearly this condition is successively realized, the
more advantageously will the general interest be consulted. There is a sort of provision
in the nature of the human mind fo r this species of progress. Imperfect institutions,
as has already been shown, cannot long support themselves when they are
generally disapproved of. and their effects truly understood. There is a period at
which they may be expected to decline and expire, almost without an effort. Reform,
under this meaning of the term, can scarcely be considered as of the nature of action.
Men feel their situation; and the restraints that shackled them before vanish like a deception.
When such a crisis has arrived, not a sword will need to be drawn, not a finger
to be lifted up in purposes of violence. The adversaries will be too few and too
feeble to be able to entertain a serious thought of resistance against the universal
sense of mankind.