This organism so long as it is healthy can adapt itself to all kinds of conditions. The aim of politics is not to prevent change, but to prevent stagnation, which is death. Emerson is saying that government exists for persons and property. He says, To the young citizen organized society lies in rigid repose, men and institutions rooted like oak trees to the center around which all arrange themselves the best they can. It seems apparent that Emerson has another idealist view of what society could be like if man s decisions were all based on moral forces alone.
Every actual state is corrupt.
Good men must not obey the laws too well. Emerson then is saying that political institutions are not the answer to anything or everything and that very simply are only as means to finding a way better or not of living. Over the years we have placed too much authority and too much faith in what our forefathers have written as law. Emerson would have us understand that any law written has room for improvement. The mention of Plato and such philosophers reminds me of the moral implications Emerson is insisting on in this piece if mans is to evolve into a better class and also touches on the idea that men are selfish and accordingly often men and women who seek political avenues are in search of esteem from others and thus their purpose is not genuine and cannot serve to move, or to change human progress in a positive way.