Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from An Appeal to the Mechanics and Laboring-Men of New England: Delivered at Fall River, Nov; 5, 1870
Is an infringement of the principle of free government as much as the edict of a Caesar. Without any fur ther preface, I will plunge into my subject by a truism. Happiness is the end of government; and to find out the best way to secure it by law is the object of poli tics. Speaking generally, there are two gpea-t natural divisions of sentiment among men upon all questions of government. There are the much-government men and the little-government men; those who think that government can create and bestow positive blessmgs, and those who think that it can at most only prevent evil; those who hold that government can procure, and those who aver that it can only secure, public happiness. In a word, one set of men regard the great majority of men as incapable of discerning or pursumg their own happiness without the guidance and control of some part of their fellow-citizens, called a government; while the other set think that each in dividual is the best judge, and surest artificer, of his own welfare. One party is naturally for the unwea ried activity, the other for the masterly inactivity, of government. Now, from the beginning of things, be fore the Constitution was adopted, these two great natural parties have struggled, with various fortune, in our public affairs. The governmental party thought the Constitution too weak to stand. As Alexander Hamilton, the great leader of the strong-government faction, said, I am still laboring to prop the frail and useless fabric. There must be persevering endeavor to establish the fortune of a great empire on founda tions much firmer than have yet been devised; while the let-us-alone party feared that it held a despotism in its belly. Thomas Jefferson, the first great advo.
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