Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience?- in which majorities decided only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience, then? I think that we should be man first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume, is to do at any time what I think right. It is truly enough said, that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience. Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice. A common and natural result of an undue respect for law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain,corporal, privates,powder-monkeys and all marching in ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart. -#THOREAU