Government is Best which Governs Least :: essays papers

Governwork forcet is Best which Governs Least I heartily deliver the motto, That government is outmatch which governs least and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe--That government is best(p) which governs not at all and when men are prepared for it, that go away be the kind of government which the will have. Government is at best but an expedient but most governments are usually, and all governments are abouttimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing(a) army, and they are m either and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which is only the musical mode which the commonwealth have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act with it. Witness the presen t Mexican war, the work of comparatively a a few(prenominal) individuals using the standing government as their tool for in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure. This American government--what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the vitality and force of a single invigoration man for a single man can bend it to his will. It is a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves. But it is not the little necessary for this for the people must have some complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have. Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed upon, even impose on themselves, for their own advantage. It is excellent, we must all allow. Yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way. It does not kee p the rural free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate. The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished and it would have done approximately more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way. For government is an expedient, by which men would fain succeed in letting one another completely and, as has been said, when it is most expedient, the governed are most let alone by it.