[Revised from the New York Herald of July 11, 1870.]
MRS. VICTORIA C. WOODHULL’S CONCLUDING CHAPTER ON THE SCIENCE OF
GOVERNMENT
[The following is the concluding chapter of the essay on government,
its aims, sphere and tendencies, by Mrs. Woodhull, the female
candidate for the Presidency:]
There are no circumstances existing within the range of government which
are deleterious to the conditions among which they are found that do not
come within the sphere of its control. If it were attempted to enumerate
all such conditions, a very large proportion existing would come in for
mention. Special reference will be made to such only as are represented
by crime, indigence, helplessness and perverseness. While government has
its duty to perform regarding all these, in their relations to society
in general and the public welfare, it must not be lost sight of that
they form a part of the general public, and, as such part, it has a duty
to render even to them and to the relations they sustain as individuals
to other individuals.
The criminal is not only the son and brother, but often the husband and
father. Though he may have, by some act, forfeited the guarantee of
liberty government extends to the people, he has not thereby sundered
family relations, responsibilities and duties. It is the duty of
government to foster these, while protecting public welfare by
preventing the criminal from pursuing his course of individual freedom
at the expense of the freedom or happiness of other individuals or the
public. In this view penitentiaries should not be what they are, but
should be changed into vast workshops, where the convicted may labor at
some not altogether distasteful employment, to the same end that he
should labor when free. The theory of punishing crime is not all that
should be taken into consideration regarding the criminal. As now
practiced it is exceedingly doubtful whether the State does not do the
individual greater injustice than he has done the public. The State
should pursue such a course as is perfectly clear from injustice, such
as can conscientiously be held as committing no crime against the
criminal. To render to him what and only what he has rendered another is
maintaining the old Mosaic rule of “an eye for an eye,” which in these
latter times should be obsolete. The world has risen from the condition
of Mosaic times by the experience of thousands of years. Fear was the
only controlling power then. Should it be so now? Prevention is better
than remedy; besides, there is no such thing as remedy for crime already
committed. The criminal can by no possible means—nor can the State—undo
the wrong. Reparation in most cases is impossible, but should be
rendered, wherever possible. It becomes, then, the chief duty of the
State to prevent the recurrence of wrong by putting such restraint upon
those who are inclined to it as will effectually prevent their
inclinations finding expression.
Supposing that all living persons who have ever committed any
infringement upon the rights, liberties or privileges of others of
sufficient moment to warrant preventative means being applied were
restrained from mingling with the public, what would be the ratio of
decrease in crime? These persons have trespassed upon the public welfare
and it must be protected from further trespass. It is the duty of the
State to see this done. At the same time the means of prevention must be
such as shall not encroach upon the culpable one’s rights further than
such prevention actually requires. As a member of society he has
forfeited to society, to a certain extent, the freedom of expressing his
privileges and rights as an individual, by the infringement upon the
privileges and rights of another individual, also a member of the same
society; and for this, society is in duty bound to restrain him. It only
requires that the present universally adopted theory, that crime is
against the people and not the individual suffering, be carried to its
legitimate sequences to teach the proper limitation to this restraint.
Having arrived at that, it remains for the State to concede every other
individual privilege to him.
It should be his right and privilege to labor and receive its full
recompense, to which the State should have no right, further than the
cost of his maintenance. The profits should be given those dependent
upon him, or should go toward reparation for the damages done by him. He
should have the privilege of amusement, should have access to a public
library and the daily news. His whole restraint should be made as nearly
as possible analagous to the every-day life of a useful citizen. He
should no longer be the condemned criminal, but the member of society
whom the public welfare requires shall be restrained from following the
freedom his proclivities indicate.
There is another class of individuals who, either from circumstances
beyond their control, from indolence, from incapacity, from settled
habits or from perverseness, do not perform sufficient labor to maintain
themselves and families in a condition that renders them useful members
of society. Society suffers more or less from all the different
representatives of this class. They must live, and society must, in some
manner, furnish the means to them of living. If it is not earned, it is
begged or stolen. There are those also who, being too honest to steal
and too proud to beg, suffer untold privations. All who would cannot
obtain remunerative occupation, or that which they are suited to
perform. To all of these as members of society, as a part of the people,
government owes a duty. Society, of which they are a part, owes them the
necessities of life, even if it be compelled to force them to earn them.
It cannot be made the duty of individual members of society to look
after the amelioration of these conditions. It is a general condition
growing out of the relations of all its members, and hence becomes a
governmental function, not only so far as they, as a class, are
concerned, but also to protect individuals of other classes from being
made to bear the burdens of them, either by voluntary contributions or
from the impositions of beggary and theft. Every one who has attained
proper age, and is possessed of moderate health, is capable of
performing sufficient service to support him or herself, and by so doing
is a useful member of society, because contributing to the sum total of
its productions. If he cannot obtain employment, society should supply
it to him. If he will not labor, society should compel him. If he cannot
labor, society should maintain him. Were this practice once instituted,
the dens of infamy and vice, the sink-holes of crime and disgrace, the
pest-houses of disease, and the crammed-to-suffocation attics and
cellars of our large cities, would be emptied of their occupants, and
they be made useful, instead of, as now, iniquitous members of society.
They are a dead weight society has to carry. It is a duty society owes
them and itself to compel them to assist in maintaining its general
progress. The same principle that applies to the criminal should also
include them. The general influence they exert upon society is even
worse than that of the downright criminal—for where the criminal is one
they number thousands. If it is necessary for the interests of the
people that he who steals a hundred dollars should be restrained of his
liberty—and it is the sphere of government to do it—how much more would
it be for its interests to transpose these leeches upon the vitality of
society into producing members of it? As a subject wherein the public
welfare suffers, it is strictly within the sphere of government. Other
citations of unprofitable members of society could be made, but
sufficient has been alluded to to indicate the general limits and sphere
of government when considered philosophically. The evidences of a
perfect government must not be sought among the most powerful and useful
members of society, but among the very lowest classes. A good government
can have no classes so low in the scale of development or use as to be
detrimental to its interests. And here is the test of governmental
perfectability. If the United States, as a nation, occupies any superior
or conspicuous position in prophecy which is to make it
representative—if it is the point around which consolidation into
universal government is to begin, and from which control shall revolve
until the world is its object—it becomes the imperative duty of our
statesmen and legislators to extend the sphere of government until its
limits are bounded by nothing that is detrimental to the general welfare
of the people. Such government, and such only, can be enduring while
becoming universal.
VICTORIA C. WOODHULL, 44 Broad Street.