GOVERNMENT.
Man is a dependent being, and neither does nor can suffice for himself.He lives not in himself, but lives and moves and has his being in God.He exists, develops, and fulfils his existence only by communion with God, through which he participates of the divine being and life.He communes with God through the divine creative act and the Incarnation of the Word, through his kind, and through the material world.Communion with God through Creation and Incarnation is religion, distinctively taken, which binds man to God as his first cause, and carries him onward to God as his final cause; communion through the material world is expressed by the word property; and communion with God through humanity is society.Religion, society, property, are the three terms that embrace the whole of man's life, and express the essential means and conditions of his existence, his development, and his perfection, or the fulfilment of his existence, the attainment of the end for which he is created.
Though society, or the communion of man with his Maker through his kind, is not all that man needs in order to live, to grow, to actualize the possibilities of his nature, and to attain to his beatitude, since humanity is neither God nor the material universe, it is yet a necessary and essential condition of his life, his progress, and the completion of his existence.He is born and lives in society, and can be born and live nowhere else.
It is one of the necessities of his nature."God saw that it was not good for man to be alone." Hence, wherever man is found he is found in society, living in more or less strict intercourse with his kind.
But society never does and never can exist without government of some sort.As society is a necessity of man's nature, so is government a necessity of society.The simplest form of society is the family--Adam and Eve.But though Adam and Eve are in many respects equal, and have equally important though different parts assigned them, one or the other must be head and governor, or they cannot form the society called family.They would be simply two individuals of different sexes, and the family would fail for the want of unity.
Children cannot be reared, trained, or educated without some degree of family government, of some authority to direct, control, restrain, or prescribe.Hence the authority of the husband and father is recognized by the common consent of mankind.Still more apparent is the necessity of government the moment the family develops and grows into the tribe, and the tribe into the nation.Hence no nation exists without government; and we never find a savage tribe, however low or degraded, that does not assert somewhere in the father, in the elders, or in the tribe itself, the rude outlines or the faint reminiscences of some sort of government, with authority to demand obedience and to punish the refractory.Hence, as man is nowhere found out of society, so nowhere is society found without government.
Government is necessary: but let it be remarked by the way, that its necessity does not grow exclusively or chiefly out of the fact that the human race by sin has fallen from its primitive integrity, or original righteousness.The fall asserted by Christian theology, though often misinterpreted, and its effects underrated or exaggerated, is a fact too sadly confirmed by individual experience and universal history; but it is not the cause why government is necessary, though it may be an additional reason for demanding it.Government would have been necessary if man had not sinned, and it is needed for the good as well as for the bad.The law was promulgated in the Garden, while man retained his innocence and remained in the integrity of his nature.It exists in heaven as well as on earth, and in heaven in its perfection.Its office is not purely repressive, to restrain violence, to redress wrongs, and to punish the transgressor.It has something more to do than to restrict our natural liberty, curb our passions, and maintain justice between man and man.Its office is positive as well as negative.It is needed to render effective the solidarity of the individuals of a nation, and to render the nation an organism, not a mere organization--to combine men in one living body, and to strengthen all with the strength of each, and each with the strength of all--to develop, strengthen, and sustain individual liberty, and to utilize and direct it to the promotion of the common weal--to be a social providence, imitating in its order and degree the action of the divine providence itself, and, while it provides for the common good of all, to protect each, the lowest and meanest, with the whole force and majesty of society.
It is the minister of wrath to wrong-
doers, indeed, but its nature is beneficent, and its action defines and protects the right of property, creates and maintains a medium in which religion can exert her supernatural energy, promotes learning, fosters science and art, advances civilization, and contributes as a powerful means to the fulfilment by man of the Divine purpose in his existence.Next after religion, it is man's greatest good; and even religion without it can do only a small portion of her work.
They wrong it who call it a necessary evil; it is a great good, and, instead of being distrusted, hated, or resisted, except in its abuses, it should be loved, respected, obeyed, and if need be, defended at the cost of all earthly goods, and even of life itself.
