LIMITS AND SPHERE OF GOVERNMENT.
[Revised from the New York Herald of May 27, 1870.]
[Revised from the New York Herald of May 27, 1870.]
[Revised from the New York Herald of May 27, 1870.]
[In the following communication Mrs. Woodhull, whose former essays on political matters have been published in theHerald, considers the question of government with special reference to the system under which we live in the United States:]
Having in “The Tendencies of Government” traced the rise and fall of nations, and found that from earliest historic time to the present, there has been a continual grasping for universal power, and a constant failure to maintain the extent of control actually reached; that the systems through which universal control was sought were too imperfect to admit of support for any great length of time over an extended area of country; that the general order of the world seems to indicate that universal government will become a fact, and that the United States shall be the seat of such governmental power, we may now come to consider what control a government must be invested with in order that it shall at all times meet the demands of the people and the times, and therefore be continuous while becoming universal.
It is predicated that government exists by the consent of the governed. While this is nominally true, it virtually contains but an undeveloped germ of truth. In no country as yet does the government exist by the consent of the governed. In this country least of all does it apply, though superficially it may not so appear.
Government is universal. All things in all the various kingdoms of nature are the objects of governing laws which form the subjective order of the universe. In all natural government the relations between the governing power and the powers governed are always well defined, while the requirements of the governed are always met by requisite modes of administration. Each coming demand falls into some common method of being answered. Thus, in the greatest conceivable diversity of conditions, are found the fewest and simplest laws of control. Rising from purely material to the more refined powers of mind, represented only in the human, a new phase of development springs up. Being an individualized power within itself, the human family represents the divine power that controls the whole, and in this relation fashions its governments according to the limitations of its acquired standard of wisdom, which must always necessarily be imperfect in comparison with the common laws of the universe, in the same proportion as human wisdom is imperfect when compared with divine wisdom.
The world of mind has now arrived at an age and corresponding development, which begins to comprehend the general laws of the universe, and to understand their great simplicity and perfect adaptation to all things under them. Seeing that such a perfect system of government exists throughout the universe of matter, the inquiry is beginning to be earnestly made, why the universe of mind cannot be controlled by equally simple and general laws and systems of administration. Seeing that changes are never necessary in the common universal laws, the inquiry is also beginning to be made, why the laws that govern society cannot be so fashioned after the laws of nature as not to require the constant remodelling now necessary when changes come, in the circumstances required to be met.
The solution of the difficulty in which the mind becomes involved when considering these most serious questions, seems reduced to a single proposition—that all strifes, difficulties and controversies regarding government and its administration, arise from the fact, that the governing power is not general but specific in its operations, or that the powers governed are not subservient to a common law of control. This is still more clearly perceptible if the question of “reserved rights” on the part of any of the governed is considered. No individual can have a reservation that militates against the general welfare of others, or the whole, without specific laws to sustain him in it. If no individual can have such special reservation, no number of individuals less thanthan the whole, can have reservations without specific protection. Therefore no city, county, State, or number of them, less than all cities, counties and States forming a consolidated union, can hold in reserve any rights or privileges that do not contribute to the general welfare of the whole, without sooner or later coming into conflict regarding them. This theory of reserved rights was pretty forcibly, logically and effectually refuted by the late war; so must all such reservations be equally well refuted before permanent peace, harmony and prosperity can be expected to flow from government and it remain permanent.
Analytically and philosophically considered, government exists for the general good of all the governed, in which individual rights and privileges can find freedom and justice without conflict. All systems that exist upon a less comprehensive basis than this must eventually be swept away. All parts of systems that conflict with the general fundamental propositions in which they were based and reared must be expunged, so that administration can be in perfect harmony with profession, before it will be possible for general good to flow from administration. The fundamental propositions upon which this government professes to rest—that all men and women are born free and equal and entitled to the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—are in accordance with the general order of the universe below man, and are therefore of the highest possible authority.
That all are born free is a proposition that no one can question; but this freedom is general to all, and does not refer to the individual, nor entitle him or her to push his freedom so as to encroach upon the same freedom guaranteed to every other individual. Therefore, individual freedom is merged in, and is a part of, general freedom.
That all men and women are born equal is another strictly philosophic proposition that can never be refuted by the concurrent scientific truth that no two of the whole are born alike in every particular. Equality, in a philosophic sense, does not imply similarity or even likeness; one thing may be equal to another, or a number of others, and still be unlike them all. A pound of feathers is equal to a pound of lead in gravitating power, but the lead does not resemble the feathers in any respect; hence, equality does not presuppose likeness.
The pursuit of happiness is an additional common right, naturally resulting from freedom and equality, and which can be prosecuted in any direction that does not interfere with the general pursuit of it on the part of the whole. From this analysis of inherent rights it wouldseem that it should be the sphere of government to maintain such freedom and equality, and thus guarantee to all and every the pursuit of happiness, and to protect them therein; and, co-relatively, that the limits of government should be nothing less than the circle that will permit such fatherly—such motherly—control.
It will scarcely be questioned by those who accept the evolution of government as a common law, that the government of this country, as a system, comes nearer being an exponent of the philosophic limit and sphere than that of any other country, though it must be confessed that the practices under it belie its fundamental principles. So much is this true, that, while it is safe to assert of the system that it is the best of all, scarcely one can be named wherein so great distinctions obtain between the intentions of the system and the effects obtained by its administration. This follows because, having asserted fundamental principles of freedom and justice, the lines of policy pursued have not been shaped by them. The principles have been lost sight of in the pursuit of party and personal or sectional policies, so that the government is no longer an exponent of principles, but rather of the persons, parties or sections which have raised themselves above principles as authorities: hence the government has limitations put upon the operations of its principles, and becomes thereby inconsistent within itself.
All the corrupt practices that are prevalent in the various parts of the governing process are possible only because the professions and practices of government are not in harmony. The professions of government relate to principles; the practices to its limits and sphere. Therefore, in the present article, the practices will be dealt with. In dealing with them it will come within the intended limits to examine the machinery by which government is administered, and to determine what movements within the body of society should be under its general control, so that all its movements may be made in harmony. Were any other branch of government than that relating to society being examined, its limits and sphere would be found so plainly determined there would be no possibility of even apparent departure by the governing control from them; for in all these the divine power is that control, and consequently is perfect. In society, the divine power, though the controlling element, is maintained over human minds, which are finite and imperfect representatives of the divine power, and are thereby incompetent to so arrange and order subservient circumstances, that harmony shall be the only result of the combinations formed to secure consecutive order.
The government of this country is selected for analysis because, as a system, it is the latest production of the social order of things, and, consequently, the highest in the scale of evolution. It represents a greater “coherent heterogeneity” in its construction than any other, and its “constituent units” are more “distinctly individuated,” which demonstrates that it is the highest order of government yet attained on the globe. The fault in its construction is, that the powers of the constituent units are not harmoniously related to the central power, nor to each other, discord being the natural consequence of such inequality. Though the constituent parts of society are in themselves imperfect, their relations to each other and to the governing power may be so well defined and regulated that their imperfections shall not have power to mar the harmony of action proceeding from the central power. And this is the point which is sought.