If I have left in the breasts of my fellow-citizens a sentiment of
satisfaction with my conduct in the transaction of their business, it
will soften the pillow of my repose through the residue of life.
The question you propose, whether circumstances do not sometimes occur,
which make it a duty in officers of high trust, to assume authorities
beyond the law, is easy of solution in principle, but sometimes
embarrassing in practice. A strict observance of the written laws, is
doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen: but it is not the
highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our
country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by
a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself,
with life, liberty, property, and all those who are enjoying them with
us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means. When, in the battle
of Germantown, General Washington's army was annoyed from Chew's
house, he did not hesitate to plant his cannon against it, although
the property of a citizen. When he besieged Yorktown, he leveled the
suburbs, feeling that the laws of property must be postponed to the
safety of the nation. While the army was before York, the Governor of
Virginia took horses, carriages, provisions, and even men, by force, to
enable that army to stay together till it could master the public enemy;
and he was justified.
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