Emerson argues that cruelty in government creates dangers not only for those who suffer under it but also for those who exercise power. A ruler who governs through oppression, fear or violence may provoke hostility, resistance or retaliation, making their own position less secure.

Within Compensation, the statement reflects Emerson’s wider belief that actions produce corresponding consequences. Political power does not exempt a person from this principle: harmful conduct can generate conditions that eventually threaten the person responsible for it. The remark is therefore less a prediction about any single government than an example of Emerson’s broader moral argument about balance and consequence. It presents cruelty as politically self-undermining, suggesting that authority maintained through harm may carry its own risks and costs for those who wield it.