"Mr. Littlepage," commenced Mr. Bunce, with a particularly important physiognomy, "there has been a meeting of the public, this morning, at which these resolutions was passed. We have been appointed a committee to deliver a copy of them to you, and our duty is now performed by handing you this paper."
"Not unless I see fit to accept it, I presume, sir," was my answer.
"I should think no man, in a free country, would refuse to receive a set of resolutions that has been passed by a meeting of his fellow-citizens."
"That might depend on circumstances; the character of the resolutions, in particular. The freedom of the country it is, precisely, which gives one man the same right to say he cares nothing about your resolutions, as it does you to pass them."
"But you have not looked at the resolutions, sir, and until you do, you cannot know how you may like them."
"That is very true; but I have looked at their bearers, have seen their manner, and do not quite like the assumption of power which says any body of men can send me resolutions, whether I like to receive them or not."
This declaration seemed to strike the committee aghast! The idea that one man should hesitate to submit himself to a yoke imposed by a hundred, was so new and inconceivable to those who deem majorities all in all, that they hardly knew how to take it.[29] At first there was an obvious disposition to resent the insult; then came reflection, which probably told them that such a course might not prove so well, the whole terminating in the more philosophical determination of getting along easily.
"Am I to understand, Mr. Littlepage, that you refuse to accept the resolutions of a public meeting?"
"Yes; of half a dozen public meetings put together, if those resolutions are offensive, or are offered offensively."
"As to the resolutions, you can know nothing, having never seen them. Of the right of any number of the people to pass such resolutions as they may think proper, I presume there can be no question."