In such a nation, rebellion, or any evasion of Law,
becomes a more serious moral evil. Rebellion _there_ can scarcely be
called for; and it were difficult to gauge the dimensions of its
unrighteousness!
4. To justify rebellion, it is necessary that there should be a fair
prospect of successful resistance--of an overthrow of the
government. If the resistance is not likely to be successful for
good, but is only likely to cost the lives of the resisting
individuals and others; then, such individuals are sacrificing
themselves and others for no good purpose,--which is a thing that
cannot be justified to reason or religion. A man has no right to
fling away his life for a mere sentiment, and leave his wife a
widow, or his gray-haired parents without a son to solace them.
There must be some fair prospect of great good to come from it,
before one can justly fling his life into the scale, in a violent
contest with the government.
5. To justify rebellion, there must be a fair prospect of the firm
_establishment of a letter government_, and the enactment of more
just laws, after the present government is overturned. Nothing can
justify a revolution, a conflict, a waste of treasure and blood,
which are not going _to gain anything_ in the end.--Again, the last
four years' experience of European nations may read us a lesson.
6. To justify rebellion, or what is the same thing, violent
resistance to the execution of the laws, it is necessary that
something more than a _small fraction_ of the people should rise in
such a resistance.
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