he Legislature any more than it is theirs to petition me; and if they
should not hear my petition, what should I do then? But in this case the
State has provided no way; its very Constitution is the evil. This may
seem to be harsh and stubborn and unconciliatory; but it is to treat
with the utmost kindness and consideration the only spirit that can
appreciate or deserves it. So is an change for the better, like birth
and death which convulse the body.

I do not hesitate to say, that those who call themselves Abolitionists
should at once effectually withdraw their support, both in person and
property, from the government of Massachusetts, and not wait till they
constitute a majority of one, before they suffer the right to prevail
through them. I think that it is enough if they have God on their side,
without waiting for that other one. Moreover, any man more right than
his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already.

I meet this American government, or its representative, the State
government, directly, and face to face, once a year--no more--in
the person of its tax-gatherer; this is the only mode in which a man
situated as I am necessarily meets it; and it then says distinctly,
Recognize me; and the simplest, the most effectual, and, in the present
posture of affairs, the indispensablest mode of treating with it on this
head, of expressing your little satisfaction with and love for it, is
to deny it then. My civil neighbor, the tax-gatherer, is the very man I
have to deal with--for it is, after all, with men and not with parchment
that I quarrel--and he has voluntarily chosen to be an agent of the
government. How shall he ever know well what he is and does as an
officer of the government, or as a man, until he is obliged to consider
whether he shall treat me, his neighbor, for whom he has respect, as
a neighbor and well-disposed man, or as a maniac and disturber of the
peace, and see if he can get over this obstruction to his neighborliness
without a ruder and more impetuous thought or speech corresponding with
his action? I know this well, that if one thousand, if one hundred, if
ten men whom I could name--if ten honest men only--ay, if one HONEST
man, in this State of Massachusetts, ceasing to hold slaves, were
actually to withdraw from this copartnership, and be locked up in the
county jail therefor, it would be the abolition of slavery in America.
For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what