{"id":"01KG8AMJBEQ5SRYMB6VADSJ9VY","cid":"bafkreibln25cb6y6mrvel4oyushv4tbwhgus2nubupzar2wye2zmtgpkgy","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":5669,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.270Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":5618,"text":"officers from any punishment whatever, and in all cases protect them\r\nfrom the scourge, which is inflicted upon the sailor. Therefore,\r\naccording to Blackstone and Justinian, those laws have no binding\r\nforce; and every American man-of-war’s-man would be morally justified\r\nin resisting the scourge to the uttermost; and, in so resisting, would\r\nbe religiously justified in what would be judicially styled “the act of\r\nmutiny” itself.\r\n\r\nIf, then, these scourging laws be for any reason necessary, make them\r\nbinding upon all who of right come under their sway; and let us see an\r\nhonest Commodore, duly authorised by Congress, condemning to the lash a\r\ntransgressing Captain by the side of a transgressing sailor. And if the\r\nCommodore himself prove a transgressor, let us see one of his brother\r\nCommodores take up the lash against _him_, even as the boatswain’s\r\nmates, the navy executioners, are often called upon to scourge each\r\nother.\r\n\r\nOr will you say that a navy officer is a man, but that an American-born\r\ncitizen, whose grandsire may have ennobled him by pouring out his blood\r\nat Bunker Hill—will you say that, by entering the service of his\r\ncountry as a common seaman, and standing ready to fight her foes, he\r\nthereby loses his manhood at the very time he most asserts it? Will you\r\nsay that, by so doing, he degrades himself to the liability of the\r\nscourge, but if he tarries ashore in time of danger, he is safe from\r\nthat indignity? All our linked states, all four continents of mankind,\r\nunite in denouncing such a thought.\r\n\r\nWe plant the question, then, on the topmost argument of all.\r\nIrrespective of incidental considerations, we assert that flogging in\r\nthe navy is opposed to the essential dignity, of man, which no\r\nlegislator has a right to violate; that it is oppressive, and glaringly\r\nunequal in its operations; that it is utterly repugnant to the spirit\r\nof our democratic institutions; indeed, that it involves a lingering\r\ntrait of the worst times of a barbarous feudal aristocracy; in a word,\r\nwe denounce it as religiously, morally, and immutably _wrong_.\r\n\r\nNo matter, then, what may be the consequences of its abolition; no\r\nmatter if we have to dismantle our fleets, and our unprotected commerce\r\nshould fall a prey to the spoiler, the awful admonitions of justice and\r\nhumanity demand that abolition without procrastination; in a voice that\r\nis not to be mistaken, demand that abolition today. It is not a\r\ndollar-and-cent question of expediency; it is a matter of _right and\r\nwrong_. And if any man can lay his hand on his heart, and solemnly say\r\nthat this scourging is right, let that man but once feel the lash on\r\nhis own back, and in his agony you will hear the apostate call the\r\nseventh heavens to witness that it is _wrong_. And, in the name of\r\nimmortal manhood, would to God that every man who upholds this thing\r\nwere scourged at the gangway till he recanted.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 3"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJRBSMWSS3C32ME91PJZ7","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMJBERP9VCPEJT6VWAJHB","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:41.326Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:47.386Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}