Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1850-1854, 1854-01-06
Self-Government.
BY HENRY WARD BEEcHER,

thSA1 OhNo SAOAAo ain ISL oNItlIs I16u
not single man ever controlled himself, and
not a single nation been selfgoyerned, the
truth would still be the same that mans ma
tire requires him to govern himself, an d that
where by passion or ignorance he wM moi, or
where by restrictive violence he can not, he
comes short of the end for which he was Gre
ated. This is fundamental in such a sense,
that man that is not free to do as he will
is not man, but the remnants of one.
A human ,eing half educated, governed
from without, receiving his rights from the
hands of rulers as charities and free missives,
is no more the creature that God meant in
man, than a Chinaman's tree dwarfed in
flower pot is Gods idea OF venerable oak.
A nation of imbecile men governed, is GER
tainly better than if ungoverned; but either
way do not indicate Gods creative design.
The almost growM and the utmost self
government are the two constituent elements
of education. All educations must look to
selfgoye nment as their end. All educations
are to be judged by their capacity to produce
selfgoverument. The man that does not
come 10 that is a failure; the civil government
that does not begin and end in that is a fail
ure.
lay it down as the s;ll and foundation of
social truth, that a man has right to the use
of every faculty that God has placed within
him; that he has right to develop them
to their utmost power; that he is SO created
that all his powers, fully carried out will be
harmonious with themselves; and that each
man, developed tremendously with himself,
i. G., self-governed, will be in harmony with
his fellow-man; and that selfgovernment in
the individual is the foundation of self-gov-
eminent in the state; and that the greater the
whole power of the individual, the easier is
selfgoyernment, and the more entire the lib
erty of lf-government, the more perfect will
be its reflection and consequence, to civil law
and general government
Let it be remarked, that the pyramid stands
not upon the right of men to do as they please,
but upon the right and duty of men to SELF
control BY self-control, mean that volun-
tary ordering of a mans powers which shall
give them the greatest possible activity and
liberty, with the most pertect harmony among
themselves. That order is not left to each
ones caprice; it is fixed, and revealed both
in Natatre and Scripture. When the hui
man soul opens toward God, reverently low
ing, the whole mind, of its own self, by the
necessity Of Its creation, falls into an adjust
ment that gives to each faculty its truest and
fullest pouer and liberty, and IN that liberty
also It's most perfect harmony.
Men who thus are developed will dwell to-
gether tremendously; the more powerful the
Individual, the more powerful will be society !;
neither will there be conflict between the
Individual good and the public good. For
the last will be but the united voice of the
former, as the thunder of waves is but the
united song of single drops, rolling their ever
flowing anthem round and round the world
Perhaps the force Of these views will be felt
better, if we analyze the opposite ones, and
contrast them.
1t is usually supposed that man, by nature
is waif drifting hther and tkither by the
force of circumstances, and without determin-
ing force of his own. That man was made
to be governed; that liberty is only what is
left after all needed restrictions are imposed;
that the soul is formed with powers whose
! full expansion and freest out-acting is incon-
sistent with social peace and civil government.
That the good of the whole requires all men
| to be pared and cut down; and that single
men, III the fabric of society, compared with
what they would be if fully free, are like tim
Der in houses and ships, compared with trees
growing in pastures and forests; no longer
rooted and branched with sturdy bolc, stall
wart trunk, and brave swinging branches, that
sing in the zephyr. and clap their hands in
the storm; but rotten sills, posts, clap boards,
! shingles, elects and pins.
! Thus, practically, the liberti of the individ-
! ual is deduced from the power of the state.
Aman is, not ,chdt God ordained hiahim;;
but what is left, after the civilaxe has branched
| and hewed him. Society is not harmoni-
Gus body of large and free men, mingling
common interests togetherin such a way that
each man floats upon a broader and swifter
current of prosperity; but society is vast
machine; men, AS clay, ere wrought, partitioned
of, pressed, burnt, and laid up in the social
fabric with various cement, brick on brick.
If it be said that men have, as individuals,
grown corruptly; that they have first quarrel
led with themselves; that being utterly at
discord, they have been brought together by
FORCE because tuSN IeIIi~eu any otIeI Ie>NidlHL
! but that of coercion from without, am sorry
that can not deny it 1t has been so. And
if there is no way in which men as individu-
ais shall be made to feel and to assme the
duty of self government, it must so continue
to be.
But that which now seek is to show that
our notions of individual rights, and of the
sphere and functions of governments, have
been derived from the erpedients Of Time,
and not from Gods Ordinance of Nature.
! 1t is time that we should gather up the ele-
ments of a true theory; that we should thor
oughly feel that the way to make strong gov
ernnents is to make strong individuals; that
strong individuals are not made by compress
sion, but by expansion; that the way to pre-
vent vicious and destructive development,
is 10 secure development along the lines which
God has marked. We must make the NDI-
VIDUAL to be the FIRST ELEMENT in all
social estimates and reckonings.
Within the range of human ken. there !.