Where is the justice of political power if it executes the murderer and jails the plunderer, and then itself marches upon neighboring lands, killing thousands and pillaging the very hills?

The quotation indicts the moral inconsistency of the modern state: it claims legitimacy by punishing individual crimes (murder, theft) while committing analogous or greater violence under the banner of law, patriotism, or “national interest.” By juxtaposing courtroom justice with armies “marching upon neighboring lands,” it frames war and imperial expansion as institutionalized murder and plunder—acts excused precisely because they are carried out by political power. The rhetorical question presses a standard of justice that applies equally to individuals and governments, suggesting that legality without ethical coherence is hypocrisy. The image of “pillaging the very hills” intensifies the charge, extending wrongdoing from human victims to the land itself.