SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL.
THE State exists because of sin. It is necessary to restrain men who can not control themselves. It is set above all things to guard the rights, not of the mighty or of the majority; for even in feudalism and barbarism such can care for themselves. But the State—the ideal State—exists for the purpose of conserving and defending the individual, even the weakest, in his equal rights with all others. Jean Richter has truly said: "Individuality is everywhere to be guarded and honored as the root of all good." "The greatest good of the greatest number" is often used by good men in an utterly meaningless or pernicious way. It is an end sought, an object aimed at; and in this way it is wholly selfish. There has not been an oppressive system under the sun but what its devotees hoped sometime to have the greatest number, and for their own they have sought the greatest good. The only true seeking in the State is the jealous guarding of the rights of the minority, of the poorest, of the weakest. The conservation of the rights of the one means the conservation of the rights of all, and its inevitable fruitage—result, outworking—is the greatest good to the greatest number. He only knows true liberty, he only works for the permanent conservation of his own liberties, who grants to the other man—be he his most bitter and relentless religious or political opposer—the rights he asks for himself. True civil government is not set to bestow these rights, to uphold or promote certain systems or doctrines apart from men, but to protect man in the rights which his Maker has given him. This is the very fundamental principle on which the Declaration of Independence is based: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that when any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." The great object of the founders of this Government was the protection of each person in his rights, which God gave to every one equally. In so protecting the individual, incivility and violence on the part of those who disregard others' rights are restrained; and the result is the greatest good to the greatest number. Under such a government there can be no legal oppression of the poor, no overriding of the rights of the few or the weak, no class legislation, no State fetish of a system or an organization upheld in any way by government support or promoted in any way11by government act, no religious legislation, or the State-fostering of religious institutions, and hence the elevation of the class who honor the institutions. "Man is more than constitutions," and we may add, than institutions; and if constitution or institution fetter or hinder the exercise of the God-given rights of the man, let the institution die and the man live. "Man is more than constitutions;
Better rot beneath the sod
Than be true to Church and State,
While we're doubly false to God.
"We owe allegiance to the State,
But deeper, truer, more
To the sympathies that God has set
Within our spirit's core.
"Our country claims our fealty,
We grant it so, but then,
Before man made us citizens,
Great Nature made us men." Thus wrote the grand American, James Russell Lowell, and such sentiment needs to thrill hearts again to-day to meet the fearful trend and tide which is sweeping the individual from all his rights and subjecting him to the worst forms of tyranny the world has ever known.