it would last until it had an Established Church. Again they
were all unhit - at first. But presently one man looked up and asked me to state
that proposition again; and state it slowly, so it could soak into his
understanding. I did it; and after a little he had the idea, and he brought his
fist down and said he didn't believe a nation where every man had a vote would
voluntarily get down in the mud and dirt in any such way; and that to steal from
a nation its will and preference must be a crime, and the first of all crimes.
    I said to myself:
    »This one's a man. If I were backed by enough of his sort, I would make a
strike for the welfare of this country, and try to prove myself its loyalest
citizen by making a wholesome change in its system of government.«
    You see, my kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its
institutions or its office-holders. The country is the real thing, the
substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care
for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing,
and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to
protect the body from winter, disease, and death. To be loyal to rags, to shout
for rags, to worship rags, to die for rags - that is a loyalty of unreason, it
is pure animal; it belongs to monarchy, was invented by monarchy; let monarchy
keep it. I was from Connecticut, whose Constitution declares »that all political
power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their
authority and instituted for their benefit; and that they have at all times an
undeniable and indefeasible right to alter their form of government in such
manner as they may think expedient.«
    Under that gospel, the citizen who thinks he sees that the commonwealth's
political clothes are worn out, and yet holds his peace and does not agitate for
a new suit, is disloyal; he is a traitor. That he may be the only one who thinks
he sees this decay, does not excuse him: it is his duty to agitate anyway, and
it is the duty of the others to vote him down if they do not see the matter as
he does.
    And now here I was, in a country where the right to say how the country
should be governed was restricted to six persons in each thousand of its
population