I found this remarkable, unsigned article in the Leeds Times:
Passive Resistance.
We have been informed that large numbers of the working classes of several
districts, have come to the determination of going to gaol rather than serve,
if drawn for the militia!
Here is a suggestion which contains in it the germ of a tremendous moral
power, — before which, if generally acted on, no bad Government could stand.
Suppose that the people generally, or even a large minority of the people,
determine, as the members of the Society of Friends have long ago done — to go
to gaol rather than bear arms, — and what is the consequence! That the
physical force arm of the Government is paralysed, and it must then either
govern by public opinion, or go quietly out of existence.
Fancy our gaols filled with men — torn from their wives and families, and from
their industrial avocations, — because they will not fight — because they are
wiser than their governors — because they are better Christians. In the early
ages of Christianity, when its spirit was fresh, men refused to bear
arms, — they refused to fight for any master — because they were
Christians.
It would, indeed, be something to live in a time when the working classes were
too enlightened to go to war for the benefit of the governing classes.
But suppose the principle were carried out. Suppose the working classes
refused to enlist. The reign of oppression, of injustice, of monopoly, of
fraud, and of wrong, would at once be brought an end!
It is because the people have been so ready to hire themselves out to force
one another to submit to injustice, that they have so long been oppressed.
Every wrong is maintained by brute force. If the people refuse to supply the
brute force, the wrong would perish.
By passive resistance — by perseveringly refusing to aid or abet the
government in its plans of coercion, the whole machinery of oppression would
at once fall to pieces. It is because they have been ready to sell themselves
to their oppressors, that the people have so long been oppressed.
It is not possible to force resolute people to obey an unjust law, if they be
determined passively to resist it. It is not possible to force a people who
use no force.
Passive resistance to bad laws has already effected much; but it is able to
effect very much more. The Irish people got rid of tithes and vestry cess,
simply by refusing to pay them. They resisted passively, and no force that
could be employed against them, had the slightest effect. Passive resistance
triumphed.
In most of our large towns, church rates have been put down by the same means.
The people have gone to gaol sooner than pay them, and the tax became so
obnoxious that it could not be levied. Passive resistance gained a triumph.
The Quakers, Moravians, and Separatists, have got rid of oaths, by simply
refusing to take them. By passive resistance to a bad law, they overcame it.
And if men, because of a principle, have refused to take oaths, and to pay
tithes and church-rates, — and by refusing, have overcome the law; — how much
more would all men be justified in refusing to take up arms, for the purpose
of mangling and destroying their fellow-creatures, and prolonging the sway of
brute force, of physical outrage, of tyranny and oppression of the very worst
kind.
Passive resistance could put down the militia law; and not only that, but
every other bad law. The people have only to resolve not to support a law, and
to go about their business quietly, just as if no such law were in existence,
at once to put an end to it. By simple passive resistance, the most oppressive
and tyrannous government that exists, can, without violence, be stript of
every shred of its power, and reduced to utter impotency.
In passive resistance, the people have an enormous, an irresistible
power, — did they but know it. ’Twere full time that they did.
