In what way it is to be inaugurated is solely a question of "expediency."[849] "To brand the policy of terrorism and assassination as immoral is ridiculously weak. 'Liberty' does not assume to set any limit on the right of an invaded individual to choose his own methods of defence. The invader, whether an individual or a government, forfeits all claim to consideration from the invaded. This truth is independent of the character of the invasion. It makes no difference in what direction the individual finds his freedom arbitrarily limited; he has a right to vindicate it in any case, and he will be justified in vindicating it by whatever means are available."[850] "The right to resist oppression by violence is beyond doubt. But its exercise would be unwise unless the suppression of free thought, free speech, and a free press were enforced so stringently that all other means of throwing it off had become hopeless."[851] "If government should be abruptly and entirely abolished to-morrow, there would probably ensue a series of physical conflicts about land and many other things, ending in reaction and a revival of the old tyranny. But, if the abolition of government shall take place gradually, it will be accompanied by a constant acquisition and steady spreading of social truth."[852] 3. The social revolution is to come about by passive resistance; that is, refusal of obedience.[853] "Passive resistance is the most potent weapon ever wielded by man against oppression."[854] "'Passive resistance,' said Ferdinand Lassalle, with an obtuseness thoroughly German, 'is the resistance which does not resist.' Never was there a greater mistake. It is the only resistance which in these days of military discipline meets with any result. There is not a tyrant in the civilized world to-day who would not do anything in his power to precipitate a bloody revolution rather than see himself confronted by any large fraction of his subjects determined not to obey. An insurrection is easily quelled, but no army is willing or able to train its guns on inoffensive people who do not even gather in the street but stay at home and stand back on their rights."[855] "Power feeds on its spoils, and dies when its victims refuse to be despoiled. They can't persuade it to death; they can't vote it to death; they can't shoot it to death; but they can always starve it to death. When a determined body of people, sufficiently strong in numbers and force of character to command respect and make it unsafe to imprison them, shall agree to quietly close their doors in the faces of the tax-collector and the rent-collector, and shall, by issuing their own money in defiance of legal prohibition, at the same time cease paying tribute to the money-lord, government, with all the privileges which it grants and the monopolies which it sustains, will go by the board."[856]