Bro. Smith: Bro. Waggoner's note, published in Review of April 23, 1859, I had overlooked till lately. He asks if I would kill my fellow-man in obedience to the government of the United States? I hold that the right of self-defense is just as good in the individual, as in the government, but neither has any right to revenge even on the deadliest enemy. The obligation to obey God rather than man must involve the individual right to discriminate between revenge and self-defense. It would be revenge in the government to kill or abuse its prisoners, or to invade the nation by whom it had been invaded. Nor would I obey the government to march beyond the boundary line of my country, but In a war of defense
I would find means immense,
And fight till all are exhausted,
Reserving always the right of private judgment, as to the justice of the cause, which being settled in my own mind, I award to the government the right to prescribe the mode of resistance, only so, that the end must never sanctify unholy means. If all the subjects of the government were true Christians, regarding the divine law (which requires us to lay down our lives rather than violate it), as paramount to all human authority, there could be no aggressive nor revengeful war. Nobody would enlist to march beyond the boundary line. But if the powers that be are ordained of God, in any higher sense than the power of the pirate—if human and divine law can consist together at all, the human law must have a penalty, as well as the divine; for law without penalty is no law, nor can penalty always be inflicted without destruction of life; for the culprit might resist the penalty unto death, so that it might be my duty to fire upon the mob. His other question, "Would I as United States Commissioner deliver up the fugitive slave?" somewhat surprised me as rather derogating from my anti-slavery reputation, which I have had the vanity to think was established above suspicion. I would "not deliver up the servant that has escaped from his master," but whenever a fair opportunity offers, I would hazard much in aiding the slave to escape; for I regard not only the fugitive slave law, but also all slave laws, whether State or national, as not only against the divine law, but also unconstitutional. Yours for truth and righteousness.