XIX
WHY LARRY WAS READY FOR BATTLE
“LARRY, you ought to be a major-general,” said Dick, with enthusiasm,as soon as the boatswain was well out of earshot. “I never saw anythingbetter managed than that was. From the moment you put us behind thelog, the fight—if there was to be a fight—was all ours.”
“Yes,” said Tom, “we’d have had no difficulty in cleaning those fellowsout if it had come to that, and the boatswain saw it as clearly as wedid. But I don’t yet understand why you did it, Larry.”
“Why, simply to make sure of success in self-defense. That seems simpleenough,” responded Larry.
“Oh, yes, that’s simple enough, but I wasn’t thinking about that. Imeant I don’t see why you made any objection to going aboard at firstand telling the officers there all you’re going to tell them now. Youare going of your own accord now; why didn’t you go when he wanted youto?”
“Because there was a principle at stake,” answered Larry, setting histeeth together as he recalled the controversy. “We are going aboard nowof our own accord, as you say. That’s very different from going aboardas prisoners, under compulsion.”
“But I don’t see what difference it would have made when you knew theofficers there would make guests instead of prisoners of us as soon asthey heard what you had to say. It seems to me it would have come tothe same thing in the end.”
“Not by a long shot,” answered Larry, speaking with particularearnestness. “Think a minute, Tom. We are free men, living under a freegovernment that exists for the express purpose of securing liberty toall its people and protecting them in the enjoyment of that liberty.If one man, or one set of men, could arrest others without a warrantfrom a court, there would be no security for liberty and no liberty infact. Whenever the people of any country are ready to submit to anyinfringement of their rights as free men, liberty in that country isdead, and tyranny is free to work its evil will. And in a free countryit is the most sacred duty of every man to resist the smallest aswell as the largest trespass upon his rights as a man. Usually he cando this by appealing to the courts of law, but in a case like oursto-night, where there is no possibility of making such an appeal, everyman must be ready to fight for his rights—yes, to fight to the deathfor them if necessary.”
“But the matter was so small in this case—”
“What possible difference does that make? A principle is never small;liberty is always of supreme consequence, and it makes no differencehow trifling the trespass upon one’s liberty is in itself, the duty toresist it at all costs and all hazards is just the same. Convenienceand comfort do not count in any way. The difficulty is that men arenot always ready to take trouble and endure inconvenience in defenseof their rights where the matter in question seems to them of smallmoment. They forget that ‘eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,’or if they remember it, they are too self-indulgent to undertake atroublesome resistance. It was not so that the men of the Revolutionarytime looked at the matter. Webster said that the Americans ‘went to waragainst a preamble,’ and perhaps they did, but the preamble involved afundamental principle. It was for the principle, not for the preamble,that they fought for seven long years. The colonists could easily havesubmitted to the impositions of a half crazy king and his tyrannicalprime minister. It would have saved them a vast deal of inconvenience,expense and danger to do so. It would have been far more comfortablefor them if they had done so. But if they had, this great, free nationof ours would never have existed, and the people in other civilizedcountries would not have enjoyed anything like the liberty they do now.In the same way it would have saved a lot of trouble if we had letthose people arrest us to-night, but we had no right to submit to that.It was our duty to stand upon our rights and defend the principle bydefending them.
“There! The lecture is over, and I promise not to let it happen again,”said Larry, by way of indirect apology for his seriousness.
“Well,” said Tom, “I for one am glad I heard the lecture as you callit. I needed it badly, for I had never thought of these things in thatway. How did you come to have all that on the tip of your tongue,Larry?”
“I don’t know, or, yes I do. I was born and brought up on that gospel,and I have heard it preached all my life. My father has taught Cal andme from childhood that ‘the only legitimate function of government isto maintain the conditions of liberty,’ and that the highest duty ofevery citizen is to insist that the government under which he livesshall do precisely that. Now let’s talk of something else, or youfellows talk, rather, for I’ve talked more than my share already.”
“Before we do,” broke in Dick, “there’s just one thing I’d like to ask.”
“All right. Go ahead. Ask anything you please if it isn’t a conundrum.”
“Well, it isn’t a conundrum. It is only that I wonder how you knowthere isn’t some law authorizing the revenue officers to make arrestswithout warrants?”
“I know it simply because such a law is impossible.”
“How so?”
“Because there is no power on earth that can make such a law for thiscountry.”
“Couldn’t Congress make it?”
“No. Congress has no more power to make it than a flock of crows has.”
“I don’t understand. If Congress should pass an act to that effect andthe President should sign it, what then?”
“What then? Why just nothing at all. It wouldn’t be a law. It wouldhave no more force or effect than the decree of a company of lunaticsthat the sun shall hereafter rise in the west and set in the east.”
“But why not?”
“Why, simply because Congress has no power to make any law thatviolates the Constitution. The Constitution expressly secures certainrights to every citizen. If Congress passes an act in violation of theConstitution, or even an act that the Constitution does not authorizeit to pass, the courts refuse to enforce it or in any way to recognizeit as a law. Now we’ve simply got to stop all this discussion, for Ihear the revenue officers coming.”
What Happened at Quasi: The Story of a Carolina Cruise Page 21
