The State.
Out of the family grew the state. The primitive state was an enlarged
family, of which the father was the head. Citizenship meant kinship,
real or fictitious. The house or gens was a composite family. Houses
united into tribes, and the authority of the chieftain over his
fellow-tribesmen was still based on the fact that they were, either by
birthright or adoption, his children. The ancient state was the union of
tribes under one priest and king who was regarded as the father of the
whole people.
Disputes about the right of succession, and the disadvantage and danger
of having a tyrant or a weakling rule, just because he happened to be
the son of the previous ruler, led men to elect their rulers. There are
to-day states like Russia where the hereditary monarch is the ruler:
states like the United States where all rulers are elected by the
people; and states like England where the nominal ruler is an hereditary
monarch, and the real rulers are chosen by the people.
THE DUTY.
+The function of the state is the organization of the life of the
people.+--Men can live together in peace and happiness only on condition
that they assert for themselves and respect in others certain rights to
life, liberty, property, reputation, and opinion. My right it is my
neighbor's duty to observe. His right it is my duty to respect. These
mutual rights and duties are grounded in the nature of things and the
constitution of man. They are the conditions which must be observed if
man is to live in unity with his fellow-men. It is the business of the
state to define, declare, and enforce these rights and duties. And as
citizens it is our duty to the state to do all in our power to frame
just laws; to see that they are impartially and effectively
administered; to obey these laws ourselves; to contribute our share of
the funds necessary to maintain the government; and to render military
service when force is needed to protect the government from overthrow.
To law and government we owe all that makes life endurable or even
possible: the security of property; the sanctity of home; the
opportunity of education; the stability of institutions; the blessings
of peace; protection against violence and bloodshed. Since the state and
its laws are essential to the well-being of all men, and consequently of
ourselves; we owe to it the devotion of our time, our knowledge, our
influence, yes, our life itself if need be. If it comes to a choice
between living but a brief time, and that nobly, in devotion to country,
and living a long time basely, in betrayal of our country's good, no
true, brave man will hesitate to choose the former. In times of war and
revolution that choice has been presented to men in every age and
country: and men have always been found ready to choose the better part;
death for country, rather than life apart from her. So deep was the
conviction in the mind of Socrates that the laws of the state should be
obeyed at all costs, that when he had been sentenced to death unjustly,
and had an opportunity to escape the penalty by running away, he refused
to do it on the ground that it was his duty to obey those laws which had
made him what he was and whose protection he had enjoyed so many years.
To the friend who tried to induce him to escape he replied that he
seemed to hear the laws saying to him, "Our country is more to be valued
and higher and holier far than father or mother. And when we are
punished by her, whether with imprisonment or stripes, the punishment is
to be endured in silence; and if she sends us to wounds or death in
battle, thither we follow as is right; neither may anyone yield or
retreat or leave his rank, but whether in battle or in a court of law,
or in any other place, he must do what his city and his country order
him; or he must change their view of what is just; and if he may do no
violence to his father or mother, much less may he do violence to his
country." To do and bear whatever is necessary to maintain that
organization of life which the state represents is the imperative duty
of every citizen. This duty to serve the country is correlative to the
right to be a citizen. No man can be in truth and spirit a citizen on
any other terms. And not to be a citizen is not to be, in any true and
worthy meaning of the term, a man.
THE VIRTUE.
+Love of country, or patriotism, like all love places the object loved
first and self second.+--In all public action the patriot asks not,
"What is best for me?" but, "What is best for my country?" Patriotism
assumes as many forms as there are circumstances and ways in which the
welfare of the country may be promoted. In time of war the patriot
shoulders his gun and marches to fight the enemy. In time of election he
goes to the caucus and the polls, and expresses his opinion and casts
his vote for what he believes to be just measures and honest men. When
taxes are to be levied, he gives the assessor a full account of his
property, and pays his fair share of the expense of government. When one
party proposes measures and nominates men whom he considers better than
those of the opposite party, he votes with that party, whether it is for
his private interest to do so or not. The patriot will not stand apart
from all parties, because none is good enough for him. He will choose
the best, knowing that no political party is perfect. He will act with
that party as long as it continues to seem to him the best; for he must
recognize that one man standing alone can accomplish no practical
political result. The moment he is convinced that the party with which
he has been acting has become more corrupt, and less faithful to the
interests of the country than the opposite party, he will change his
vote. Self first, personal friends second, party third, and country
fourth, is the order of considerations in the mind of the office-seeker,
the wire-puller, the corrupt politician. Country first, party second,
personal friends third, and self last is the order in the mind of the
true citizen, the courageous statesman, the unselfish patriot.
THE REWARD.
+In return for serving our country we receive a country to serve.+--The
state makes possible for us all those pursuits, interests, aims, and
aspirations which lift our lives above the level of the brutes. Through
the institutions which the state maintains, schools, almshouses, courts,
prisons, roads, bridges, harbors, laws, armies, police, there is secured
to the individual the right and opportunity to acquire property, engage
in business, travel wherever he pleases, share in the products of the
whole earth, read the books of all nations, reap the fruits of scholarly
investigation in all countries, take an interest in the welfare and
progress of mankind. This power of the individual to live a universal
life, this participation of each in a common and world-wide good, is the
product of civilization. And civilization is impossible without that
subordination of each to the just claims of all, which law requires and
which it is the business of the state to enforce.
THE TEMPTATION.
+Organization involves a multitude of offices and public servants. Many
of these offices are less onerous and more lucrative than the average
man can find elsewhere. Many offices give a man an opportunity to
acquire dishonest gains.+--Hence arises the great political temptation
which is to seek office, not as a means of rendering useful and
honorable service to the country, but as a means to getting an easy
living out of the country, and at the public expense. The "spoils
system," which consists in rewarding service to party by opportunity to
plunder the country: which pays public servants first for their service
to party, and secondly for service to the country: which makes
usefulness to party rather than serviceableness to the country the basis
of appointment and promotion, is the worst evil of our political life.
"Public office is a public trust." Men who so regard it are the only men
fit for it. Office so held is one of the most honorable forms of service
which a man can render to his fellow-men. Office secured and held by the
methods of the spoils system is a disgrace to the nation that is corrupt
enough to permit it, and to the man who is base enough to profit by it.
THE VICE OF DEFECT.
+Betrayal of one's country and disregard of its interests is
treason.+--In time of war and revolution treason consists in giving
information to the enemy, surrendering forts, ships, arms, or
ammunition into his hands; or fighting in such a half-hearted way as to
invite defeat. Treason under such circumstances is the unpardonable sin
against country. The traitor is the most despicable person in the state;
for he takes advantage of the protection the state gives to him and the
confidence it places in him to stab and murder his benefactor and
protector.
The essential quality of treason is manifested in many forms in time of
peace. Whoever sacrifices the known interests of his country to the
interests of himself, or of his friends, or of his party, is therein
guilty of the essential crime of treason. Whoever votes for an
appropriation in order to secure for another man lucrative employment or
a profitable contract; whoever gives or takes money for a vote; whoever
increases or diminishes a tax with a view to the business interests, not
of the country as a whole, but of a few interested parties; whoever
accepts or bestows a public office on any grounds other than the
efficiency of service which the office-holder is to render to the
country; whoever evades his just taxes; whoever suffers bad men to be
elected and bad measures to become laws through his own negligence to
vote himself and to influence others to vote for better men and better
measures, is guilty of treason. For in these, which are the only ways
possible to him, he has sacrificed the good of his country to the
personal and private interests of himself and of his friends.
THE VICE OF EXCESS.
+True and false ambition.+--The service of the country in public office
is one of the most interesting and most honorable pursuits in which a
man can engage. Ambition to serve is always noble. Desire for the honors
and emoluments of public office, however, may crowd out the desire to
render public service. Such a substitution of selfish for patriotic
considerations, such an inversion of the proper order of interests in a
man's mind, is the vice of political ambition. The ambitious politician
seeks office, not because he seeks to promote measures which he believes
to be for the public good; not because he believes he can promote those
interests more effectively than any other available candidate: but just
because an office makes him feel big; or because he likes the excitement
of political life; or because he can make money directly or indirectly
out of it. Such political ambition is as hollow and empty an aim as can
possess the mind of man. And yet it deceives and betrays great as well
as little men. It is our old foe of sentimentality, dressed in a new
garb, and displaying itself on a new stage. It is the substitution of
one's own personal feelings, for a direct regard for the object which
makes those feelings possible. It is a very subtle vice: and the only
safeguard against it is a deep and genuine devotion to country for
country's sake.
THE PENALTY.
+A state in which laws were broken, taxes evaded, and corrupt men placed
in authority could not endure.+--With the downfall of the state would
arise the brigand, the thief, the murderer, and the reign of dishonesty,
violence, and terror.
The individual, it is true, may sin against the state and escape the
full measure of this penalty himself. In that case, however, the penalty
is distributed over the vast multitude of honest citizens, who bear the
common injury which the traitor inflicts upon the state. The man who
betrays his country, may continue to have a country still; but it is no
thanks to him. It is because he reaps the reward of the loyalty and
devotion of citizens nobler than himself.
Yet even then the country is not in the deepest sense really his. He
cannot enjoy its deepest blessings. He cannot feel in his inmost heart,
"This country is mine. To it I have given myself. Of it I am a true
citizen and loyal member." He knows he is unworthy of his country. He
knows that if his country could find him out, and separate him from the
great mass of his fellow-citizens, she would repudiate him as unworthy
to be called her son. The traitor may continue to receive the gifts of
his country; he may appropriate the blessings she bestows with impartial
hand on the good and on the evil. But the sense that this glorious and
righteous order of which the state is the embodiment and of which our
country is the preserver and protector belongs to him; that it is an
expression of his thought, his will and his affection;--this spiritual
participation in the life and spirit of the state, this supreme devotion
to a beloved country, remains for such an one forever impossible. In his
soul, in his real nature, he is an outcast, an alien, and an enemy.