To provide for us in our necessities is not in the power of government.
It would be a vain presumption in statesmen to think they can do it.
The people maintain them, and not they the people. It is in the power of
government to prevent much evil; it can do very little positive good in
this, or perhaps in anything else. It is not only so of the state and
statesmen, but of all the classes and descriptions of the rich--they
are the pensioners of the poor, and are maintained by their superfluity.
They are under an absolute, hereditary, and indefeasible dependence on
those who labour, and are miscalled the poor.