III. THE RIGHT OF REBELLION
Passive resistance, then, is rebellion; but, as has already been admitted, it is not on that account necessarily unjustifiable. An established government may be so hopelessly iniquitous that it ought to be overthrown; an organized society may be so irremediably corrupt that it merits disruption; duly enacted laws may, when judged by moral standards, be so flagrantly unjust as to demand the resistance of all good men. There is no need to labour the point: actual examples crowd upon the mind. Who would condemn the revolt of the Greeks against Turkish rule? Who would contend that the degenerate society of the later Bourbon monarchy did not deserve dissolution? Who would maintain that John Hampden and Oliver Cromwell had no moral warrant for their resistance to Charles I, or their successors to James II. We may freely allow that in these cases, and in many similar ones, there existed on ethical grounds a right, or more strictly a communal duty, to rebel. Few would now proclaim with Filmer the divine right of any government to exact obedience quite irrespective of the wishes or the interests of its subjects. Still fewer would agree with Hobbes that an original contract precludes for ever all opposition to sovereign political authority. The ground on which political obligation is asserted has been shifted. The State is recognized as "an institution for the promotion of the common good," and it is admitted that if it ceases to promote the common good the obligation to obey it is transformed into an obligation to reform it, or even to
Shatter it to bits—and then
Remould it nearer to the heart's desire.
But, viewed thus, the right of rebellion assumes an aspect of awful responsibility, perhaps the most tremendous within the sphere of politics that the mind can conceive. For rebellion means the breaking-up of the existing order, the throwing of institutions into the melting-pot, the letting loose of incalculable forces of discord and destruction, the suspension of law, the return to chaos, in the hope that out of the welter a new and better cosmos—one more fitted to promote the common good—may be evolved. Every rebel, or prospective rebel, whether of the passive or the active type, ought to ponder well the logical consequences of his revolt against authority, ought to consider the inevitable results that would flow from the general adoption of the principles which he professes, ought to decide whether or not he really desires to overthrow the polity under which he lives, ought to ask if he and his fellows are able to face with any serious hope of success the colossal task of constructing a new society on the ruins of the old. Now the historic rebels to whom I have referred above by way of example—the Greek Nationalists, the French Revolutionists, the English Puritans and Whigs—did not hesitate to acknowledge the nature of their acts, and were not unprepared to face their consequences. They did not deceive themselves, or attempt to deceive others, by false professions of loyalty. The Greeks proclaimed their undying hostility to the Turks, fought them, shook off their yoke, and erected a national kingdom on the ruins of Turkish tyranny. The French Revolutionists openly declared war upon the old regime, eradicated it by means of the guillotine, and established a republic where it had been. Similarly the English Puritans repudiated allegiance to Charles I, brought him to the block, and instituted the Commonwealth in his place; while the Whigs drove out James II and set up the constitutional monarchy of William and Mary. One can respect heroic rebels of these types. They were honest and open; they attacked great abuses; they took great risks, and they achieved notable results. Very different are our modern rebels. They profess with nauseating unction loyalty to the State whose dominion they are undermining; they claim to be exceptionally virtuous members of the Society whose unity they are destroying; above all they continue to demand with insolent effrontery the protection of the very law and the very courts whose authority they are denying and defying. They can be freed from the charge of the most revolting hypocrisy only on the plea that "they know not what they do."
IV. REBELLION AGAINST A DEMOCRACY
It is granted, then, that rebellion may sometimes be not only a justifiable act, but also a bounden public duty. Three examples have been given which perhaps may be allowed to have illustrated and confirmed this view. It will be noted, however, that in each of the cases cited the revolt was that of an oppressed community against a government in which it had no part or lot, and over which it had no constitutional control. Rebellion against a democracy on the part of members of that democracy stands on a widely different footing. It is treachery as well as insurrection. One can, indeed, conceive circumstances which would justify it; but they would be rare and exceptional, and that for two reasons. First, in a democracy constitutional means are provided for the alteration of law and even for the remodelling of the form of government. Secondly, if a democratic government is undermined by disobedience, discredited by successful defiance, destroyed by treasonable betrayal on the part of its own professed supporters, there is nothing to take its place; the community is bound either to drift into anarchy, or to revert to some sort of tyranny. Let us consider these two points in turn. (1) The essence of democracy is government according to the will of the majority. This almost necessarily implies government in opposition to the will of one or more minorities. But democratic minorities have a remedy—and it is the peculiar virtue of democracy to provide it. It is this: by means of argument, persuasion, and appeal; by press agitation and platform campaign; through organization and combination, to convert themselves into a majority. The whole of our English political system, the very existence of our democratic constitution, depends upon the recognition and acceptance of this rule of the game. If the will of the majority is not to be regarded as authoritative, measures for reform of the franchise, extension of the suffrage, and adjustment of the electoral machine have no rational meaning at all. They are merely vanity and vexation of spirit. What matter who makes the laws, or what laws are made, if laws are not to be implicitly obeyed? Our extremists want to have it both ways: they want to enforce law with majestic severity as "the Will of the People," when they are in a majority; but they also want to defy law with conscientious obstinacy as a violation of personal freedom when they are in a minority. Some members of "The Union of Democratic Control" are also members of the "No-Conscription Fellowship"! Could inconsistency or muddle-headedness go further? Those who wish to rule as part of a majority must be prepared to be overruled as part of a minority. If minorities, instead of employing the constitutional machinery placed at their disposal to secure the repeal of obnoxious laws, are going to resist and rebel whenever the majority does something of which they strongly disapprove, there is an end of democratic government altogether, and a reversion to the state of nature. T. H. Green in his Principles of Political Obligation puts the case clearly and well. He asks this very question, What shall an individual do when he is faced by a command of a democratic government which he believes to be wrong? He replies: "In a country like ours with a popular government and settled methods of enacting and repealing laws, the answer of common sense is simple and sufficient. He should do all he can by legal methods to get the command cancelled, but till it is cancelled, he should conform to it. The common good must suffer more from resistance to a law or to the ordinance of a legal authority than from the individual's conformity to the particular law or ordinance that is bad, until its repeal can be obtained."[44] Here we have the true ground of the duty of obedience. The antagonistic principle of passive resistance provides a charter for criminals and anarchists.
(2) The second point needs little enlargement. It is clear from many examples in both ancient and modern history that if a monarchy is overthrown an aristocracy can take its place, and that if an aristocracy is dispossessed of power, room is made for a democracy. But what do our rebels against democracy propose to substitute for the sovereign will of the majority, if they succeed by resistance in reducing it to impotence? Possibly they hope that their own exalted will may prevail. Let them not flatter themselves by any such vain dream. Even assuming what is improbable, viz., that they remain united among themselves, can they suppose that their example of successful revolt will remain without imitators, or that their anti-social doctrines will never be applied again? If they will not render obedience when they are in a minority, who will obey them even if they have a majority behind them? Government will cease; the reign of order will be at an end; Society will be dissolved amid "red ruin and the breaking-up of laws."