3.15. A DILEMMA.
We are led by this discussion of secession straight between the horns of
a moral dilemma. We have come to two conclusions; to secede is a grave
sin, but to lie is also a grave sin.
But often the practical alternative is between futile secession or
implicit or actual falsehood. It has been the instinct of the aggressive
controversialist in all ages to seize upon collective organizations and
fence them about with oaths and declarations of such a nature as to bar
out anyone not of his own way of thinking. In a democracy, for example,
to take an extreme caricature of our case, a triumphant majority in
power, before allowing anyone to vote, might impose an oath whereby the
leader of the minority and all his aims were specifically renounced. And
if no country goes so far as that, nearly all countries and all churches
make some such restrictions upon opinion. The United States, that land
of abandoned and receding freedoms, imposes upon everyone who crosses
the Atlantic to its shores a childish ineffectual declaration against
anarchy and polygamy.
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