OBJECTS OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
There are many erroneous ideas concerning the objects of civil government, and as a general thing the present ideas are a long way off from those of the founders of this nation. In view of this it is good to get a restatement of them so clearly and tersely put as the following from one of late so prominently before the public, the Hon. William J. Bryan. In a speech in Chicago, the 7th inst., he said:— Let me dwell for a moment upon the object of government. In this land it is our boast that our government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. What kind of government will the people consent to when they are free to consent? There is one kind of government above all other kinds that they love. A government which knows no favoritism, a government in which every citizen stands on the same plane, and where the government treats them all alike without regard to position in society, or even without regard to wealth; a government which gives equal rights to all, but confers special privileges upon none. That is the kind of government that appeals to the affections of the common people. There are two things to be considered in government. The first is that in the enactment of legislation you shall be careful to give no advantage to one person over another, if that advantage can be prevented; in other words, it is the duty of the government to avoid acts of affirmative injustice. But that is only part of the business of the government. Jefferson has stated the other half of it. He says: “Government must restrain men from injuring one another.” That is one of the important duties of government—to restrain men from injuring one another—and the government that fails to restrain the strongest arm that can be lifted from injuring the weakest citizen in all the land is a government which fails to do its whole duty. Government was not instituted among men to confer special benefits to any. Government was instituted for the protection of all citizens, in order that they might enjoy the fruits of their own toil and the result of their own exertions. If these principles were followed, there would never be any religious or class legislation, any legislation to promote morality or to foster religion, because civil government can, in the very nature of the case, do none of these things; and every attempt so to do always has resulted and always will result in more immorality and more irreligion (from a Bible view), and more injustice and oppression; it will result in the injury of the few and the weak, politically considered, and the exaltation of those who are granted special privileges which of nature and right do not belong to them. Civil governments do not nor can they make men better; they originated because of men's selfishness. If all men were unselfish, a civil government would never be needed. But civil government can not make man unselfish; it is designed to do what alone it can do, restrain open selfishness, or incivility, crime, and oppression. Mr. Bryan has stated this so clearly that we further quote:— I was passing through Iowa some months ago and I got an idea from some hogs. . . . As I was riding about I noticed these hogs rooting in a field, and the first thought that came to me was that they were destroying a good deal of property, and that carried me back to the time when, as a boy, I lived on a farm, and I remembered that when we had hogs we used to put rings in the noses of the hogs, and then the thought came to me, “Why did we do it?” Not to keep the hogs from getting fat. We were more interested in their getting fat than they were. The sooner they got fat the sooner we killed them; the longer they were in getting fat, the longer they lived. But why were the rings put in the noses of these hogs? So that while they were getting fat they would not destroy more property than they were worth. And as I thought of that this thought came to me, that one of the duties of the government is the putting of rings in the noses of hogs. Now, my friends, do not consider this a reflection on your neighbor. We are all hoggish. We are all selfish, my friends, and we must not apply this lesson simply to somebody else. If you tell me that you are not selfish, I can prove by your neighbor that you are, and if your neighbor denies that he is selfish, I can prove by you that he is. We are all selfish. The Creator did not make any class of people who were entirely unselfish; but I have faith in our form of government, because I believe that the people, in their better moments, will adopt laws which restrain themselves in hours of temptation, in order that their neighbors may also be restrained in hours of temptation. We can not say that we believe wholly with Mr. Bryan in the last statement of what will be, but we do believe with him in what is and ever must be the true principles of every good civil government rightly administered; and we further believe such principles will commend themselves to every fair-minded person.