"Resistance to Civil Government" Vocab Flashcards
expedient
“Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all government are sometimes, inexpedient.”
a method to effect a desired purpose/outcome; a means to an end
posterity
“This American government—what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity?”
all future generations
alacrity
“Yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way.”
speed
conscientous
“It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience.”
thoughtful/careful/vigilant in one’s task performance
powder-monkeys
those who carry explosives in battle
posse comitatus
“They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc.”
armed men or men who are able-bodied for war
become
“How does it become a man to behave toward the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.”
beseem; to be proper for
ado
“If one were to tell me that this was a bad government because it taxed certain foreign commodities brought to its ports, it is most probable that I should not make an ado about it, for I can do without them.”
to make a fuss/commotion
expediency
“Can there not be a government in which the majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience?—in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable?”
suitability for a circumstance/situation
leaven
“It is not so important that many should be good as you, as that there be some absolute goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump.”
to lift/rise
forthwith
“He forthwith adopts one of the candidates thus selected as the only available one, thus proving that he is himself available for any purposes of the demagogue.”
immeditately
inducement
“Our statistics are at fault: the population has been returned too large. How many men are there to a square thousand miles in the country? Hardly one. Does not America offer any inducement for men to settle here?”
incentive
Odd Fellow
“The American has dwindled into an Odd Fellow—one who may be known by the development of his organ of gregariousness, and a manifest lack of intellect and cheerful self-reliance; whose first and chief concern, on coming into the world, is to see that the almshouses are in good repair…”
an international fraternity originating in England
gregariousness
“The American has dwindled into an Odd Fellow—one who may be known by the development of his organ of gregariousness, and a manifest lack of intellect and cheerful self-reliance; whose first and chief concern, on coming into the world, is to see that the almshouses are in good repair;”
sociability; enjoyment of socializing and crowds
virile
“…before yet he has lawfully donned the virile garb, to collect a fund to the support of the widows and orphans that may be; who, in short, ventures to live only by the aid of the Mutual Insurance company, which has promised to bury him decently.”
manly
furnish
“See what gross inconsistency is tolerated. I have heard some of my townsmen say, “I should like to have them order me out to help put down an insurrection of the slaves, or to march to Mexico—see if I would go”; and yet these very men have each, directly by their allegiance, and so indirectly, at least, by their money, furnished a substitute”
to supply/provide
incur
“The slight reproach to which the virtue of patriotism is commonly liable, the noble are most likely to incur.”
to bring upon oneself
requisition
“Some are petitioning the State to dissolve the Union, to disregard the requisitions of the President”
a formal demand made by one state or government upon another for the surrender or extradition of a fugitive
waive
“If my esteemed neighborDefinition, the State’s ambassador, who will devote his days to the settlement of the question of human rights in the Council Chamber, instead of being threatened with the prisons of Carolina, were to sit down the prisoner of Massachusetts, that State which is so anxious to foist the sin of slavery upon her sister—though at present she can discover only an act of inhospitality to be the ground of a quarrel with her—the Legislature would not wholly waive the subject of the following winter.”
to relinquish (a right)
exorbitant
“To such the State renders comparatively small service, and a slight tax is wont to appear exorbitant, particularly if they are obliged to earn it by special labor with their hands.”
excessively high
invidious
“If there were one who lived wholly without the use of money, the State itself would hesitate to demand it of him. But the rich man—not to make any invidious comparison—is always sold to the institution which makes him rich”
unfairly/offensively discriminating
industrious
“I could not but smile to see how industriously they locked the door on my meditations, which followed them out again without let or hindrance, and they were really all that was dangerous.”
hard-working or persistent
strait
“When I meet a government which says to me, ‘Your money or your life,’ why should I be in haste to give it my money? It may be in a great strait, and not know what to do: I cannot help that.”
a difficult position
snivel
to say (something) while crying/sniffling
