It has been the intention to show the importance of unity of purpose in
government, and that such unity of purpose can only be obtained by the
application to administration of those principles which in operation
produce unity in the kingdoms below the kingdom of ideas. Human
government differs from all other kinds of government in this, that it
is for the control of Mind instead of Matter. The natural direction the
individual would pursue results not only from causes which arise in his
material nature, but to these are superadded those which pertain to the
Mental in contradistinction to Matter. Each individual is not only an
epitome of all previous material forms which have been evolved, but he
is also the finite representative of the Infinite Power which caused all
those evolutions, and therefore has an individualized, determining power
of his own to the extent that he represents the Infinite; and as this
extent differs in degree so extensively among the total of individuals
over whom government presides, it is the most difficult of all tasks to
prescribe forms for it to operate through, by which it can reach and
control this diversity.
This most serious difficulty which arises at every step in the search
for the true source of government, comes from the innate sentiment of
freedom in man, which is the truthful expression of the characteristics
of the Infinite, which are indigenous, so to speak, to his nature. He
involuntarily resists all attempts to exercise authority over him
because of these sentiments. He feels, he realizes, that no individual,
nor any number of individuals, has any authority from any competent
authority to exercise supreme control over him; and thus it is that all
individuals resist control.
Just at the point arrived at comes in the other part of the fact, which
being considered, modifies the absoluteness of individuality. Every
individual must either ever remember, or be compelled to remember, that
he is but one of millions of individuals who live upon the face of the
earth, each one of whom feels the same innate sentiment of self-right;
and thus it comes that there should be no restraint at all over each
individual exercising all his selfish ideas of rights strictly within
his individual sphere; and that all these should be compelled to
harmonize so that none may interfere with others. Even to this last
proposition there are natural modifications to be inferred from
everything below man. The higher order has the authority of its position
in the natural scale of evolution, over all that precedes it; and this
authority is of that absolute character which receives the sanction of
nature in all the kingdoms which man can view.
The higher orders of ideas and thoughts should thus be the controlling
power among men. They should assume the business of the artist in ideas,
and prune, dig and destroy, if possible, all lower ideas which, live but
to sap the vitality from the more advanced. The best expression, then,
which it is possible for principles to find in the individualized
productions of the highest animal form, must be sought in the most
highly developed mentality; or in that mentality which expresses the
most of the Infinite, and which is consequently the highest authority
represented through humanity.
Mentality represents the most important department of the duality which
constitutes the source of governmental power; but this, acting alone,
would not prove the perfect principle. It would pursue its aims with no
regard to sentiment or feeling. It would ruthlessly destroy all
imperfections which debarred it from having absolute control, instead of
endeavoring to consolidate their life with the higher and the better
because it is the higher. To this active, sternly analytic principle,
must be added the principle of unity or the affectional, which seeks to
combine all mentality in one harmony. The head and the heart should act
in concert; the head perceiving that the same general principles should
be used to direct the forms of every department of life, and endeavoring
to apply them to control humanity, should head the appeals of the heart,
which, from its mainsprings of love and tenderness, feels, that the
whole universe is bound together by the indissoluble ties of fraternity,
and, therefore, should realize that as a father and mother, they should
govern their children. Of these principles, government should be the
true exponent, representative and administrator.
But here the question arises: How shall such government be inaugurated?
How shall those who are the best representatives of advanced ideas and
the broadest fraternal feeling become installed as the administrators of
government? Every thinking person knows that no such persons or
principles are in authority now, and that they have not been these many
years. In the early days of the republic, which was constructed by men
whose souls were imbued with these principles—or at least the fraternal
principle—it may be fair to admit that something nearly assimilating to
the true kind of government did exist. A government founded in the
principles ours was could not have been organized except by men of the
very highest order of development in the true principles of government.
They were hundreds of years in advance of the general people, for whom
they wrought, and it may be seriously questioned whether they have had
any representatives since, and whether they have any at present, who are
actuated by any such lofty patriotism as they were. So long as they
lived it was but natural that the people should have continued them at
the head of what they had constructed, by the means they prepared for
the expression of their right of self-government. It is well
demonstrated that these men fully realized the principles of freedom,
equality and justice, which realization comes from the conspicuous
development of the paternal and affectional elements. Mentality, it is
plain, was not so conspicuously developed, for they did not comprehend
that the time would come in which those who should fill their places
should be almost infinitely lower in the scale of true governmental
principles than they were, or that the controlling motives of such could
ever descend from their lofty stand to grovel in the purely selfish. But
the time has come and now is, in the which the present places the
fathers of the republic occupied are filled by those who are not in any
sense the representatives of the true principles of government. It is
quite true that the people are responsible for the men they select to
represent them, but that does not better the very bad fact that the
people are not represented, any more than that the true principles of
government are. When this fact is seriously considered, it becomes
apparent that there is a difficulty somewhere in the processes of
government which has such imperfections that the ends of government as
understood by its founders are utterly defeated. The result of this
imperfection is, that instead of the true and best representative men of
the country—those whom the previous analysis points out as possessed of
the qualities demanded in government—being chosen to perform the
function for which they are adapted, they are left one side, while
others without ideas are sent where they should go. In short, the whole
governmental operations have been and are being prostituted to the
selfish ambitions of party leaders, who do not care a whit what means
are used so that they win thereby. This shows not only that there are
imperfections in the organization, but that there is much which is
radically wrong. It is even now being more than whispered around that
there is a plot being matured by which some of those who are now in
power intend to continue themselves in power, even if they are obliged
to seize upon the government in spite of the people. Such a plot could
only bring destruction upon the actors; but that such a disgraceful
thing could occur, or even be conceived, proves that a remedy is needed
somewhere, which shall prevent such persons acquiring the power they
would thus prostitute to their own purposes, at the expense of the
sacrifice of the rights of the people.
This government is either a government for the people or for the office
holders; latter practices incline outside observers to the opinion that
it is the people’s only in theory. If we examine the theory, it looks
finely enough; but when the manner it is outwrought comes under
observance, nothing can be found which entitles it to the name of the
people’s government. It is not the people’s government by a very great
deal; nor is it a government for one-half the people even; neither is it
a government which guarantees equality to its citizens; every count
which can be made is against it, as the exponent of principles upon
which it professes to stand.
In the first instance, one-half of the people are debarred from all
political rights whatever, and they are those who form the producing
part of humanity, and whose interests in government are in every way
equal to that of those who exercise all the political power. Thus at the
very outset we find a professed equal government proscribing one-half
the people over whom its authority is exercised; and, be it ever
remembered, is fully maintained. While they are made responsible for all
infringement of law, they have no voice in determining what that law
shall be. While they are compelled to assist equally with the preferred
class to maintain and support government by the payment of taxes,
revenues, &c., they have no power to control the use that shall be made
of them. This proscribed class, though living in the United States of
America, a so-called Republic, are in no better condition and stand in
no superior relation to the government they are compelled to give
adhesion, respect and support to, than are those of the most absolute
monarchy upon the face of the earth. What think you, enslaved people, of
the great, the free, the exalted government of a country which professes
so much and grants you nothing?
In the next instance, it is not the government of the one-half of the
people it has really the semblance of being, and which many think it is.
To completely establish this significant fact, the attention of the
people is called to the immense minorities in the several States, and
the relations which they sustain to a Presidential election, wherein the
sum total of all the citizens of all the States who are permitted to
cast their ballots, and who do so cast their ballots, for the electors
who vote for the defeated candidate, exceed the sum total of all the
citizens of all the States who are permitted to cast their ballots and
who do so cast their ballots for the electors who vote for and elect
their candidate. Such results have obtained; but a President thus
elected is elected by the votes of the minority of the citizens of the
United States who are permitted to vote, and consequently, within the
Union as a whole, a person may occupy the Presidential chair against the
will of the majority of the voting citizens of all the States. Such is
the perfection of the forms which have been framed and used through
which to obtain popular self-government; and such the results obtained.
The same line of argument applies with equal directness and force to the
citizens of each State in relation to their entire State government,
with the exception of such officers as are elected upon the ticket with
the Governor; their representation in the lower House of Congress, and
in their Legislatures and through their Legislators and their
representation in the Senate of the United States may be, and often is,
that of the minority of the voting citizens of the State. The same is
also true of all incorporated cities outside of their general officers.
This condition of affairs shows that there are two conflicting
principles ever operating against each other, and that their very worst
features appear when their object is the “first office in the gift of
the people,” which, above all others, should be filled by the choice of
the majority of all the citizens of all the States.
Scarcely less in importance, as compared with the Chief Magistracy of
the Union, is the importance of Congressional legislation, which should
be determined by Representatives and Senators who should represent the
majority of all the voting citizens of all the States. This government
will always stand in danger of being overthrown by the unrepresented
majority, so long as such forms of arriving at representation are
allowed to determine these questions, which lie at the very basis of a
republican form of government.
The whole difficulty which this question presents arises from the
seeming stubbornness with which the people refuse to understand that the
interests of the people as a whole can only be promoted by promoting the
interests of each individual composing the whole. In this consideration
the Democratic doctrine of States rights, to which the Democrats adhere
even yet with so much apparent stubbornness, is utterly subversive of
the first principles of unity and it may be emphatically stated that
until enlightenment is obtained upon this point by the common ignorance
of the country, there is no security from wars such as that from the
effects of which we have not yet fully recovered. The same principle of
States rights, as compared with those of all the States, if a correct
principle of self-government, should also be recognized as the proper
one to be acted upon in counties as against the State, and in cities as
against counties and States, and in wards as against cities, and by
citizens as against the wards in which they reside, and by the several
partners of firms as against the authority of the firm as a whole. It is
the only mischievous principle which is operating to destroy the
Republic which is prophetic of so much civilization and advancement to
the whole world.
Under the application of such principle a single government for all the
“nations, kindred and tongues” of the earth would be utterly impossible
and impracticable. Nothing but strife, contention and wars would follow
a government founded on such principles of individuality as do not and
will not recognize the superiority of the community as compared to the
individual members of it. Upon this principle brought down to
individuals, every individual would have the absolute right to act upon
his own self-interests, no matter how seriously such action might
interfere with others possessing the same right. The community would
have no right to compel any restraints upon the individual under this
principle of rule. This principle applied everywhere would carry us back
to pre-historic times, when every individual was his own supreme
authority, and maintained it at the risk of his life. This is the purest
form of anarchy, and as such is laid down by all writers upon
pre-historic times.
Why do not the advocates of States rights contend for the application of
the same principle to its fullest extent, and thereby become consistent?
Why do they advocate any general government at all? The truth and the
facts of the case are, that such doctrines as recognize the rights of
the individual as superior to the rights of the community in which he
resides, are subversive of the first principles of order. Suppose such
principles governed the entire sidereal and solar systems, what chance
among so many vast planets would our little earth have? _It is saved
from destruction because there is a Prime Power which compels them all
into harmony of action and movement, whatever courses their individual
proclivities would lead them to._ The application of this general
superior controlling power in governmental affairs is the only method
which can secure—because it will compel—harmony.