sion evil and sin in others.
To save a slaveholder from drowning, when we know he has made a will
freeing his slaves, would put off, perhaps forever, their
emancipation, but of course that is not my fault. This making a man
responsible for all the evil his acts, _incidentally_, without his
will, occasion, reminds me of that principle of Turkish law which
Dr. Clarke mentions, in his travels, and which they call "homicide
by an intermediate cause." The case he relates is this: A young man
in love poisoned himself, because the girl's father refused his
consent to the marriage. The Cadi sentenced the father to pay a fine
of $80, saying "if you had not had a daughter, this young man had
not loved; if he had not loved, he had never been disappointed; if
not disappointed, he would never have taken poison." It was the same
Cadi possibly, who sentenced the island of Samos to pay for the
wrecking of a vessel, on the principle that "if the island had not
been in the way, the vessel would never have been wrecked!"

Then of taxes on imports. Buying and selling, and carrying from
country to country, is good and innocent. But government, if I trade
here, will take occasion to squeeze money out of me. Very well. I
shall deliberate whether I will cease trading, and deprive them of
the opportunity, or go on and use my wealth to reform them. 'Tis a
question of expediency, not of right, which my judgment, not my
conscience, must settle. An act of mine, innocent in itself, and
done from right motives, no after act of another's can make a sin.
To import, is rightful. After-taxation, against my consent, cannot
make it wrong. Neither am I obliged to smuggle, in order to avoid it.
I include in these remarks, all taxes, whether on property, or
imports, or railroads.

A chemist, hundreds of years ago, finds out how to temper steel. The
art is useful for making knives, lancets, and machinery. But he
knows that the bad will abuse it by making swords and daggers. Is he
responsible? Certainly not.

Similar to this is trading in America,--knowing government will thus
have an opportunity to increase its revenue.

But suppose the chemist to see two men fighting, one has the other
down,--to the first our chemist presents a finely tempered dagger.

Such is voting under the United States Constitution--appointing an
officer to help the oppressor.

The difference between voting and tax-paying is simply this: I may do
an act right in itself, though I