How many men are necessary to change a crime into virtue?

One man may not kill. If he kills a fellow-creature, he is a murderer. If two, ten, a hundred men do so, they, too, are murderers. But a government or a nation may kill as many men as it chooses, and that will not be murder, but a great and noble action. Only gather the people together on a large scale, and a battle of ten thousand men becomes an innocent action. But precisely how many people must there be to make it so? - that is the question. One man cannot plunder and pillage, but a whole nation can. But precisely how many are needed to maki it permissible? Why is it that one man, ten, a hundred, may not break the law of God, but a great number may?

- Ballou