LIMITS AND SPHERE OF GOVERNMENT.
LIMITS AND SPHERE OF GOVERNMENT.
LIMITS AND SPHERE OF GOVERNMENT.
LIMITS AND SPHERE OF GOVERNMENT.
[Revised from the New York Herald of June 4, 1870.]
[Revised from the New York Herald of June 4, 1870.]
[Revised from the New York Herald of June 4, 1870.]
There are a variety of operations, natural and artificial, by which the proper limits and sphere of government may be illustrated. It is desirable that some of them be presented, so as to convey a correct idea of a perfect controlling power, which bears the same relations to the parts controlled as government should to the people under it.
The cotton mills of New England are good artificial representatives of government. In them all the various parts are compelled into unityof action by the controlling power evolved from coal or transformed from water. The crude cotton is first taken and freed from all foreign substances by “the picker;” the pure remainder is then formed into a homogeneous mass by “the cards;” this mass is then divided and subdivided into the different degrees of heterogeneity required, and these are more distinctly individuated into “the webbing and filling” by “the jacks and mules,” and are then reunited by “the webber and loom” into cotton cloth, the ultimate result. Every part of this process forms points of resistance more or less easily compelled into unity of purpose. Every bobbin, spindle, shuttle and card are so many different experiences which are required to be gone through with before the result can be reached, while all parts of the process are going on at the same time. The power is the government; the operatives its administrators; the various pieces and parts of the machinery are the people working in the several parts of the process; the cloth is the attained civilization, while the different degrees of fineness are its progressive steps.
Thus it should be with human government. It is the power resident in the central part which should control all the processes by which the people are guided to produce the ultimate result. It should be of such character as to take the people in the homogeneous mass, and, by picking, carding, spinning and weaving, compel them into a unit of action for divine use. Every operation in nature, if analyzed, presents the same process and similar results. A central power competent for its purposes, through various means and avenues, controls the materials into perfected productions, each one of which is perfect of its kind. The sphere of this government is to produce the legitimate result; and its limits are only bounded by the necessities of the power that the result shall flow; but flow it must and does always.
It is then predicated, that a power, competent to produce harmony in that over which it reigns, must be sufficient to control all the different parts to one end; whatever individual or combined points of resistance may be raised to its edicts must yield to the general purpose, even to the extinction of their resistance. It is necessary, therefore, that the governing power must be invested by the governed with the necessary control, to compel them into harmonious action, so that no antagonism may arise, to divert the tendency to unity of purpose. It must not be supposed that a self-constituted, absolute power is argued for; but this power should be one fashioned and organized by and with the consent of the people, who, knowing their weakness and acknowledging it intheir sober and wiser moments, shall recognize the necessity of it, to compel them, if need be, to act with the general whole for the general good, even if it seemingly militate against their individual good, and which shall be of sufficient strength and diffusiveness to regulate all the movements within the body of society.
We will now proceed to the analysis of the various operations of government, to find to what the inharmonious relations between the governing power and the resistance are attributable, and thereby be able to determine the required remedy. Wherever this may lead, whatever “infallible” political dogmas it may destroy, or cherished forms and privileges disprove, it will be pursued as relentlessly—unmercifully if you will—as the crucible and the flame proceed to disorganize material compounds and separate their constituent elements into the poisonous, the nutritious and the useful, that the former may be put away and the remainder appropriated to promote the general good.
Government has its centre and its circumference. From its centre its power is distributed to its entire circumference, measuring and shaping the various channels through which it flows, into such form as permits harmony in all its parts, and, having spent its positive force, is then returned to its centre. This centre and circumference must be the perfect body, every member of which must not only bear its proper relations to all the other members, but must be in such accord with them, as to permit the uninterrupted flow and action of the power by which the whole is bound together. No individual member of it can say to the body itself, “I have functions and rights peculiarly my own, which, if they are not such as your general power can recognize as contributing to the general good, you cannot interfere with.” The member, in becoming such, merges its function and power with the general functions and powers of the body. By consenting to become a part of the body it gives up special sovereignty over itself and becomes a part of the general sovereignty. By adding its life and power to the body, it increases the sum total of its life and power and receives its portion of the aggregated and assimilated mass. Its parts and functions must change—if change is required—so that the power distributed to it by the general power can perform its mission in harmony with all its other parts. Like the body human, the body corporate must be under one governing power, while each part is different in form from all other parts, and performs separate—perhaps distinct—functions. The eye may not say to the ear, nor the hand to the foot, “I have no need of you,” for each and all, are alike dependent upon a central partfor existence, while the central part could not itself exist without the surrounding and distant parts. The very nature of the compact is, that each and every part is joined in a system of mutual and reciprocal interdependence, to which general system no member can set up for itself any system peculiarly its own, in contradistinction or opposition to, or to interfere with, the general system.
The government of any country, originally, is a compact among a certain number of previously separate or unorganized powers, by which they merge and consolidate into one power, or are compelled so to do. This power, so formed, is the governing power, which, while all parts have contributed to its formation, is in itself superior to any power that can be organized within its limits by any part of the originally consolidating powers. If at any time an opposition is organized to it, the result must either be, the reduction of the opposition or the destruction of the confederation. For a natural illustration the human body is again referred to.
If from any cause an opposition to the harmonious action of the general powers of the body be raised, a contest for supremacy is inevitable. If the bowels refuse to perform their allotted part in the general economy of the whole, a conflict ensues, and never ends until they are returned to duty or until they demonstrate that their opposition to the general administration is more powerful than its general power, and that the organization must be dissolved in conformity to this power. On the other hand, the general power cannot compel any of the constituent parts to conform to rules and forms not operative in the whole, nor to bear any inequality of any kind, nor to perform duty outside its special sphere. The governing power, though superior to all, must itself be subject to the common law of justice. Specialties of conferment or requirement are utterly inconsistent with a perfect form of government. The same rule of contributing to the general support, and in turn receiving appropriate sustaining power, must be uniform throughout the whole. Such a body, thus acting, be it human or corporate, is alone a healthy and harmoniously constituted power. All governments, to be able to contribute to the public welfare, must exist upon general similar principles and act by similar means.
It must again be observed that when several parts or powers are organized into one, no power less than the whole has authority therein; for, in consenting to the union at first, all absolute individuality is forever waived; the individual is no longer simply an individual power, but forms a part of the common power. Nor can absolute individualityever again be maintained, except a superior antagonistic strength is developed, which demonstrates that the powers originally attempted to be consolidated were impossible of harmonious action—a natural and sufficient reason for dissolution. Tested by these propositions, what conditions and relations does the government of the United States, as a whole composed of parts, present? Does it form one homogeneous whole, the paramount interests of the parts of which is the best welfare of the whole? Does each and every part act in unity and harmony with every other part, and in turn yield to the preponderant authority of the whole, with that grace and dignity which bespeak unison of purpose and interest? If not, where does the difficulty find its starting point? Is it in the system by which the power was organized—in the interpretation of it, or in its administration? For this the Constitution must be referred to to find wherein, if at all, its organization is defective. If the conferment of power by the organization is complete, then it must be concluded that those who administer its organic force either fail to comprehend the extent of its application or to perform their duty in applying it.