Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1870-05-04

schools and colleges, to patronIse the arts
| to support inventors and scientific men, td
run railroads across the continent and steam
ships on the high seas, and to take IN hand
a thOusan d other lsudable schemes and pro-
iects. But these kind souls do not stop tC
think that not one of these things can be
| done without exacting money from some
| body's reluctant pocket, which is an invasion
of property that not one of them can be
done without multiplying prodigiously the
number of ofice-holders, which is q danger
GUS extravaganza; that not one of them can
be done without diyerting the government
| from its proper business, as the universal
| organ, which is usurpation and that,
while the power and patronage of the State
were thus swelling into congestion, the self
reliance, the sagacity and the enterprise OF
individuals would be impoverished and par
alyzed to proportionate extent, which is
suicidal.
:" As soon as 1t is seen or understood that
government is not the organ of universal
but the tool of private ends, swarms of eager
clamorers and expectants gather about it's
doors, to solicit, to intrigue, and to fight for
its iavOrs- The State becomes, then, in the
common apprehension, sort of inexhausti-
bic fount, which has bread for all mouths,
labor for all hands. capital for all enterprises,
credit for all projects, oil for all wounds,
balm for all sorrows council for all perplex-
tiles, solution for all doubts, truths for all
intelligences, distractions for all fatigues-
milk for infancy and wine for old age; which
may provide for all our wants, anticipate all
our desires, satisfy all our curiosities, cor
rect all our errors and faults, and dispense
us evermOre from the use of our own fore
sight, prudence, sagacity, experience, order
economy, temperance, and activity"
GENERAL CONCLUSIONS.
{" In the foregoing remarks we believe that
we have touched the very secret of our polit-
ical eondition-the very source of that po-
litical degeneracy we all deplore No party
conceiyes any longer of the origin, purpose,
limits, duties of the State in the light of
sound theory, OF of solid scientific deduction.
All parties have come to regard the highest
and holiest function of sOciety-that of gov
erning itseli-the function in which human
agency most nearly approaches the divine
not as an exercise of the collective reason
and conscience, but as a mere calculation of
private and confederate interests. Govern
ment is not the application of law to the de-
Tense OF universal justice, but the perversion
of 1t TO the promotion of universal chicanery.
Legislation is not the exertion of the force
Of the whole to defeat and punish wrong,
but the exertiOn of that force to battle and
dcthrone right Politics is not science; it
is not statesmanship; it is not the use of a
general means for general ends, in which
character 1t is one of the nOblest as it is one
of the usefulest of human pursuits but it
is low piece of attorney practice, a strug-
gle of rival cupidities, n mercantile and
merchantable transaction-a debasing and
miserable contrivance of cunning and sell
fshness. There we find the cause of our
manifold evils, and there alone we expect to
find the means of restoration.
- Two points are evident First, that it
cannot be an object of the State to accom-
plish purposes which individuals may achieve
for themselves-for. in that case, its inter
ference would be impertinent and useless ;;
nor, secondly, can it be an object of the State
to annihilate the agency of individuals alto
gether-in which case it would be worse than
despotic, it would be edestructive-destructive
of society, which is composed of individuals,
and destructive of itself as an agent of sOcie-
ty. Its end, then, must be something which
individuals cannot accomplish for themselves
not not 70 Destroy but to further tne actTTTfy of
individuals. Being, we req eat. the organ,
the representative, the supreme authority,
the united force, of the whole of society, the
object of its action must be something COM
mensurate with the whole of society, some
thing essential to it as a whole and essential
to all it's component parts.
Now, the only thing which answers to
these conditions is universal security, or the
unmolested enjoyment by every person of his
life, of his free. spontaneous activities, and
of the results of those activities Individu-
ais cannot procure this for themselves by
their own unaided exertions for the very
attempt te produce it is the beginning OF
conflict and disorder. 1t is possible only to
a supreme civic organization.
The State, therefore, in its primary and
essential character, is judicial institution.
1t is not economical. or a creator and pur-
veyor of wealth it is not beneficiary, or a
dispenser of charity; it is not religious, or a
teacher of dogma; but it is equitable. or the
administrator Of Justice The main thing it
has to do is to defend and secure every man
from every other man, that the noble facul-
ties with which God has endowed us all may
find their fullest, freest, and most harmoni-
GUS development. More than that cometh OF
evil and goeth to evil. Justice Is clear, de-
fined, measurable; 1T is never excessive it is
never oppressive; it is never subversive; II
is orderly, it is peaceful, it is benignant il
is the friend of every virtue and grace of life,
the pledge of every progress - it's voice,
as Hooker says, in memorable passage,
- the harmony Of-the worlds, and it's home
the bosom of God
" When either of our parties shall return
to this true and simple idea of the State, OF
when some new party, composed of the fresh
young blood of the nation. of it's yet gen
erous and unperverted youth, shall take il
up, the rainbow of Hope will appear upon
the clouds which now shut out the heavens
| But so long as we shall continue to regard
the State as the mere instrument of oul
greeds, our difficulties will increase the
clouds will thicken and the storm grow mac
| apace, until the tempest breaks upon us in {
/ whirlwind of wrath and fury"