The Reason for Government

2. A government of laws and not of men. 3. The doctrine of local self-government. 4. The principle that governmental mandate and office are a public trust, to be exercised in strictest independence of all personal interests, prejudices, or passions, for the maintenance of individual liberty and the preservation of the public order, all to be done as related to the welfare of all individuals. 5. Avoidance of entanglements in the politics of Euro pean or other countries, and the corollary of this doctrine which advises resistance to the interference of Europe or Asia in the politics of the American continents. * The Reason for Government A point worthy of note is that this American way was not entirely devoid of violence; violence was merely less exer cised here than previously in other countries. This meant *The points here set forth have been taken from Recent Changes In American Constitutional Theory, by John W. Burgess (New York: Columbia University Press, 1923).

11 that government was strictly limited; that there was a mini mum of organized violence. But government, as a principle, had seemingly sound theory to support it. The reasoning went something like this: Each individual has an inalienable right to life. An essential concomitant of this right is the right to protect that life. Obviously, maximum liberty could not be assured by letting all citizens carry their own guns. The straightest shooters would soon be in command. What to do? Appoint an agent. Turn all guns, all force to be used for personal protection, over to him. Give him a monopoly of the coercive power, the sole and exclusive right to exercise violence. The agent, thus endowed with power, could then protect all citizens in the pursuit of their home life, their productive life, and their religious life. Each person would be free to do as he pleased up to the point of injury to others. And each would be responsible for his own welfare, with Christian charity to take up the slack. That was the theory.

Many Americans understood this agent, government, to be what it is: legal and organized police force. They had an appreciation of violence. They knew that it could be used to suppress, restrain, restrict, destroy. Restriction and destruction by government, to be useful, must be con fined to that which is bad: fraud, private violence, con spiracy, and theft or other predatory practices. But police force - violence by government or otherwise - is, pat ently, not a direct, creative force. Thus, in the original 12 plan, all creative functions were to be carried on by such voluntary, cooperative, and competitive elements as the population contained. Government was to be confined to the protection of personal liberty. OfficialsAre Still Persons These Americans who held to this societal arrangement were also keenly aware of the powers vested in their elected agent. After all, this agent was but a person or persons having normal weaknesses, including greed for power over others, plus the dangerous monopoly of the coercive weapons! It was because of a profound realization of this danger that these Americans attempted limitation of their agent.* The Constitution and the Bill of Rights, with their separation of the executive, judicial, and leg islative powers, were among the devices they employed to avert the dangers of unrestricted power that political theory predicted and history confirmed. They had an un precedented success - for a time.