[Revised from the New York Herald of May 27, 1870.]
MRS. WOODHULL’S LATEST EPISTLE TO THE AMERICANS—“THE LIMITS AND SPHERE
OF GOVERNMENT” CONSIDERED FROM A FEMALE POINT OF VIEW.
[In the following communication Mrs. Woodhull, whose former essays on
political matters have been published in the HERALD, considers the
question of government with special reference to the system under
which we live in the United States:]
Having in “The Tendencies of Government” traced the rise and fall of
nations, and found that from earliest historic time to the present,
there has been a continual grasping for universal power, and a constant
failure to maintain the extent of control actually reached; that the
systems through which universal control was sought were too imperfect to
admit of support for any great length of time over an extended area of
country; that the general order of the world seems to indicate that
universal government will become a fact, and that the United States
shall be the seat of such governmental power, we may now come to
consider what control a government must be invested with in order that
it shall at all times meet the demands of the people and the times, and
therefore be continuous while becoming universal.
It is predicated that government exists by the consent of the governed.
While this is nominally true, it virtually contains but an undeveloped
germ of truth. In no country as yet does the government exist by the
consent of the governed. In this country least of all does it apply,
though superficially it may not so appear.
Government is universal. All things in all the various kingdoms of
nature are the objects of governing laws which form the subjective order
of the universe. In all natural government the relations between the
governing power and the powers governed are always well defined, while
the requirements of the governed are always met by requisite modes of
administration. Each coming demand falls into some common method of
being answered. Thus, in the greatest conceivable diversity of
conditions, are found the fewest and simplest laws of control. Rising
from purely material to the more refined powers of mind, represented
only in the human, a new phase of development springs up. Being an
individualized power within itself, the human family represents the
divine power that controls the whole, and in this relation fashions its
governments according to the limitations of its acquired standard of
wisdom, which must always necessarily be imperfect in comparison with
the common laws of the universe, in the same proportion as human wisdom
is imperfect when compared with divine wisdom.
The world of mind has now arrived at an age and corresponding
development, which begins to comprehend the general laws of the
universe, and to understand their great simplicity and perfect
adaptation to all things under them. Seeing that such a perfect system
of government exists throughout the universe of matter, the inquiry is
beginning to be earnestly made, why the universe of mind cannot be
controlled by equally simple and general laws and systems of
administration. Seeing that changes are never necessary in the common
universal laws, the inquiry is also beginning to be made, why the laws
that govern society cannot be so fashioned after the laws of nature as
not to require the constant remodelling now necessary when changes come,
in the circumstances required to be met.
The solution of the difficulty in which the mind becomes involved when
considering these most serious questions, seems reduced to a single
proposition—that all strifes, difficulties and controversies regarding
government and its administration, arise from the fact, that the
governing power is not general but specific in its operations, or that
the powers governed are not subservient to a common law of control. This
is still more clearly perceptible if the question of “reserved rights”
on the part of any of the governed is considered. No individual can have
a reservation that militates against the general welfare of others, or
the whole, without specific laws to sustain him in it. If no individual
can have such special reservation, no number of individuals less than
than the whole, can have reservations without specific protection.
Therefore no city, county, State, or number of them, less than all
cities, counties and States forming a consolidated union, can hold in
reserve any rights or privileges that do not contribute to the general
welfare of the whole, without sooner or later coming into conflict
regarding them. This theory of reserved rights was pretty forcibly,
logically and effectually refuted by the late war; so must all such
reservations be equally well refuted before permanent peace, harmony and
prosperity can be expected to flow from government and it remain
permanent.
Analytically and philosophically considered, government exists for the
general good of all the governed, in which individual rights and
privileges can find freedom and justice without conflict. All systems
that exist upon a less comprehensive basis than this must eventually be
swept away. All parts of systems that conflict with the general
fundamental propositions in which they were based and reared must be
expunged, so that administration can be in perfect harmony with
profession, before it will be possible for general good to flow from
administration. The fundamental propositions upon which this government
professes to rest—that all men and women are born free and equal and
entitled to the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness—are in accordance with the general order of the universe below
man, and are therefore of the highest possible authority.
That all are born free is a proposition that no one can question; but
this freedom is general to all, and does not refer to the individual,
nor entitle him or her to push his freedom so as to encroach upon the
same freedom guaranteed to every other individual. Therefore, individual
freedom is merged in, and is a part of, general freedom.
That all men and women are born equal is another strictly philosophic
proposition that can never be refuted by the concurrent scientific truth
that no two of the whole are born alike in every particular. Equality,
in a philosophic sense, does not imply similarity or even likeness; one
thing may be equal to another, or a number of others, and still be
unlike them all. A pound of feathers is equal to a pound of lead in
gravitating power, but the lead does not resemble the feathers in any
respect; hence, equality does not presuppose likeness.
The pursuit of happiness is an additional common right, naturally
resulting from freedom and equality, and which can be prosecuted in any
direction that does not interfere with the general pursuit of it on the
part of the whole. From this analysis of inherent rights it would seem
that it should be the sphere of government to maintain such freedom and
equality, and thus guarantee to all and every the pursuit of happiness,
and to protect them therein; and, co-relatively, that the limits of
government should be nothing less than the circle that will permit such
fatherly—such motherly—control.
It will scarcely be questioned by those who accept the evolution of
government as a common law, that the government of this country, as a
system, comes nearer being an exponent of the philosophic limit and
sphere than that of any other country, though it must be confessed that
the practices under it belie its fundamental principles. So much is this
true, that, while it is safe to assert of the system that it is the best
of all, scarcely one can be named wherein so great distinctions obtain
between the intentions of the system and the effects obtained by its
administration. This follows because, having asserted fundamental
principles of freedom and justice, the lines of policy pursued have not
been shaped by them. The principles have been lost sight of in the
pursuit of party and personal or sectional policies, so that the
government is no longer an exponent of principles, but rather of the
persons, parties or sections which have raised themselves above
principles as authorities: hence the government has limitations put upon
the operations of its principles, and becomes thereby inconsistent
within itself.
All the corrupt practices that are prevalent in the various parts of the
governing process are possible only because the professions and
practices of government are not in harmony. The professions of
government relate to principles; the practices to its limits and sphere.
Therefore, in the present article, the practices will be dealt with. In
dealing with them it will come within the intended limits to examine the
machinery by which government is administered, and to determine what
movements within the body of society should be under its general
control, so that all its movements may be made in harmony. Were any
other branch of government than that relating to society being examined,
its limits and sphere would be found so plainly determined there would
be no possibility of even apparent departure by the governing control
from them; for in all these the divine power is that control, and
consequently is perfect. In society, the divine power, though the
controlling element, is maintained over human minds, which are finite
and imperfect representatives of the divine power, and are thereby
incompetent to so arrange and order subservient circumstances, that
harmony shall be the only result of the combinations formed to secure
consecutive order.
The government of this country is selected for analysis because, as a
system, it is the latest production of the social order of things, and,
consequently, the highest in the scale of evolution. It represents a
greater “coherent heterogeneity” in its construction than any other, and
its “constituent units” are more “distinctly individuated,” which
demonstrates that it is the highest order of government yet attained on
the globe. The fault in its construction is, that the powers of the
constituent units are not harmoniously related to the central power, nor
to each other, discord being the natural consequence of such inequality.
Though the constituent parts of society are in themselves imperfect,
their relations to each other and to the governing power may be so well
defined and regulated that their imperfections shall not have power to
mar the harmony of action proceeding from the central power. And this is
the point which is sought.