So then I says, “What’s the next plan, Tom?” And he said his next idea was to get up a revolution. Jim licked his chops over that, and says— “Hit’s a pow’ful big word, Mars Tom, en soun’ mighty good. What’s a revolution?” “Well, it’s where there ain’t only nine-tenths of the people satisfied with the gov’ment, and the others is down on it and rises up full of patriotic devotion and knocks the props from under it and sets up a more different one. There’s nearly about as much glory in a revolution as there is in a civil war, and ain’t half the trouble and expense if you are on the right side, because you don’t have to have so many men. It’s the economicalest thing there is. Anybody can get up a revolution.” “Why lookyhere, Tom,” I says, “how can one-tenth of the people pull down a gov’ment if the others don’t want them to? There ain’t any sense in that. It can’t be done.” “It can’t, can it? Much you know about history, Huck Finn. Look at the French revolution; and look at ourn. I reckon that’ll show you. Just a handful started it, both times. You see, they don’t know they’re going to revolute when they start in, and they don’t know they are revoluting till it’s all over. Our boys started in to get taxation by representation—it’s all they wanted—and when they got through and come to look around, they see they had knocked out the king. And besides, had more taxation and liberty and things than they knowed what to do with. Washington found out towards the last that there had been a revolution, but he didn’t know when it happened, and yet he was there all the time. The same with the French. That’s the peculiarity of a revolution—there ain’t anybody intending to do anything when they start in. That’s one of the peculiarities; and the other one is, that the king gets left, every time.” “Every time?” “Of course; it’s all there is to a revolution—you knock out the gov’ment and start a fresh kind.” “Tom Sawyer,” I says, “where are you going to get a king to knock out? There ain’t any.” “Huck Finn, you don’t have any to knock out, this time—you put one in.”
Posted on: Sat, 31 Aug 2013 10:19:48 +0000
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