There is no lesion to
liberty in repressing license, nor in requiring obedience to the
commands of the authority that has the right to command. Tyranny
or oppression is not in being subjected to authority, but in
being subjected to usurped authority--to a power that has no
right to command, or that commands what exceeds its right or its
authority. To say that it is contrary to liberty to be forced to
forego our own will or inclination in any case whatever, is
simply denying the right of all government, and falling into
no-governmentism. Liberty is violated only when we are required
to forego our own will or inclination by a power that has no
right to make the requisition; for we are bound to obedience as
far as authority has right to govern, and we can never have the
right to disobey a rightful command. The requisition, if made by
rightful authority, then, violates no right that we have or can
have, and where there is no violation of our rights there is no
violation of our liberty. The moral right of authority, which
involves the moral duty of obedience, presents, then, the ground
on which liberty and authority may meet in peace and operate to
the same end.
This has no resemblance to the slavish doctrine of passive
obedience, and that the resistance to power can never be lawful.
The tyrant may be lawfully resisted, for the tyrant, by force of
the word itself, is a usurper, and without authority.
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