throats. Menaced by it, the smaller blades repose in their scabbards;they have become inert, useless, and, finally rusty; with few exceptions, everybody save malefactors, has now lost both the habit and the desire to use them, so that, henceforth, in this pacified society, the public sword is so formidable that all private resistance vanishes the moment it flashes. - This sword is forged out of two interests: it was necessary to have one of its magnitude, first, against similar blades brandished by other communities on the frontier, and next, against the smaller blades which bad passions are always sharpening in the interior. People demanded protection against outside enemies and inside ruffians and murderers, and, slowly and painfully, after much groping and much re-tempering, the agreement between hereditary forces has fashioned the sole arm which is capable of protecting lives and property with any degree of success. - So long as it does no more I am indebted to the State which holds the hilt: it gives me a security which, without it, I could not have enjoyed. In return for this security I owe it, for my quota, the means for keeping this weapon in good condition: he who enjoys a service is under an obligation to pay for it. Accordingly, there is between the State and myself, if not an express contract, at least a tacit understanding equivalent to that which binds a child to its parent, a believer to his church, and, on both sides, this mutual understanding is clear and precise. The state engages to look after my security within and without; I engage to furnish the means for so doing, which means consist of my respect and gratitude, my zeal as a citizen, my services as a conscript, my contributions as a tax-payer, in short, whatever is necessary for the maintenance of an army, a navy, a diplomatic organization, civil and criminal courts, a militia and police, central and local administrations, in short, a harmonious set of organs of which my obedience and loyalty constitute the food, the substance and the blood. This loyalty and obedience, whatever Iam, whether rich or poor, Catholic, Protestant, Jew or free-thinker, royalist or republican, individualist or socialist, upon my honor and in my conscience I owe. This because I have received the equivalent;I am delighted that I am not vanquished, assassinated, or robbed. Ireimburse the State, exactly but not more that which it has spent on equipment and personnel for keeping down brutal cupidity, greedy appetites, deadly fanaticism, the entire howling pack of passions and desires of which, sooner or later, I might become the prey, were it not constantly to extend over me its vigilant protection. When it demands its outlay of me it is not my property which it takes away, but its own property, which it collects and, in this light, it may legitimately force me to pay. - On condition, however, that it does not exact more than my liabilities, and this it does when it oversteps its original engagements;1. when it undertakes some extra material or moral work that I do not ask for;2. when it constitutes itself sectarian, moralist, philanthropist, or pedagogue;3. when it strives to propagate within its borders, or outside of them, any religious or philosophic dogma, or any special political or social system.
For then, it adds a new article to the primitive pact, for which article there is not the same unanimous and assured assent that existed for the pact. We are all willing to be secured against violence and fraud; outside of this, and on almost any other point, there are divergent wills. I have my own religion, my own opinions, my habits, my customs, my peculiar views of life and way of regarding the universe; now, this is just what constitutes my personality, what honor and conscience forbid me to alienate, and which the State has promised me to protect. Consequently, when, through its additional article, it attempts to regulate these in a certain way, if that way is not my way, it fails to fulfill its primordial engagement and, instead of protecting me, it oppresses me. Even if it should have the support of a majority, even if all voters, less one, should agree to entrusting it with this supererogatory function, were there only one dissenter, he would be wronged, and in two ways. -First of all, and in any event, the State, to fulfill its new tasks, exacts from him an extra amount of subsidy and service; for, every supplementary work brings along with it supplementary expenses; the budget is overburdened when the State takes upon itself the procuring of work for laborers or employment for artists, the maintenance of any particular industrial or commercial enterprise, the giving of alms, and the furnishing of education. To an expenditure of money add an expenditure of lives, should it enter upon a war of generosity or of propaganda. Now, to all these expenditures that it does not approve of, the minority contributes as well as the majority which does approve of them; so much the worse for the conscript and the tax-payer if they belong to the dissatisfied group. Like it or not, the collector puts his hand in the tax-payer's pocket, and the sergeant lays his hand on the conscript's collar. -In the second place, and in many circumstances, not only does the State unjustly take more than its due, but it uses the money it has extorted from me to apply unjustly new constraints against me. Such is the case,* when it imposes on me its theology or philosophy;* when it prescribes for me, or interdicts, a cult;* when it assumes to regulate my ways and habits, * when it assumes to limit my labor or expenditure, * when it assumes to direct the education of my children, * when it assumes to fix the prices of my wares or the rate of my wages.
For then, to enforce its commands and prohibitions, it enacts light or serious penalties against the recalcitrant, all the way from political or civil incapacity to fines, imprisonment, exile and the guillotine.
