Servile state

“ If they are to be all equal, and each is to follow his own will, the State will appear most deformed; but if, with a distinction of degrees of dignity, of pursuits and employments, all aptly conspire for the common good, they will present the image of a State both well constituted and conformable to nature. ”

“ Why this taking up reform forever from the beggar and felon side, as if these were sole credentials to sympathy, essential elements of the social state? Rather let force, persistent yet beneficent, be brought to bear upon mankind, giving alike to prince and people the dutiful drill that alone equips for the tasks of life,—this were the State's duty, the province of rulers; a thing to set about at once with the vigor of righteousness that justice demands for the rule of the world. ”

“ When the seductive theories of the French{391} philosophers were preached as the foundation of practical politics, overturning thrones and threatening monarchical institutions with the doctrines of the social compact, the sovereignty of the people and the universal brotherhood of man, the Holy Office might claim that, as the foundations of social order were based on religion, its labors were essential for the safety of the State, while the State recognized that it was the most available instrumentality for the suppression and exclusion of the heresies of liberty and equality. ”

“ The State thus becomes an instrument by which the power of the whole herd is wielded for the benefit of a class. The rulers soon learn to capitalize the reverence which the State produces in the majority, and turn it into a general resistance towards a lessening of their privileges. The sanctity of the State becomes identified with the sanctity of the ruling class and the latter are permitted to remain in power under the impression that in obeying and serving them, we are obeying and serving society, the nation, the great collectivity of all of us. ”

“ Such a law would show them to be but servants, and servants who had shamefully abused their trust. In such a case, every man for himself would lay his hand upon his sword, and the authority of the supreme power of the state would be annihilated. ”

“ He beholds, in your Honorable body, the sovereign of the State, holding, by the Constitution, and the very nature of sovereignty in all countries, the sacred right, with your duty and responsibility to God, to visit and oversee the literary establishments, where the manners and feelings of the young are formed, and grow up in the citizen in after life; to restrain from injustice, and rectify abuses in their management, and, if necessary, to reduce them to their primitive principles, or so modify their powers as to make them subservient to the public welfare. ”

“ In fine, it makes, as it has been aptly, but not very reverently, said, God a little man, and itself and the State a little god, not in love and charity, indeed, but in power and authority.
Here is where the danger comes from, and it is against this that the people must provide. The people must see to it that the State, or those who are charged with its authority, keep within their proper place. ”

“ At a time when the true danger is that sections or classes should arrogate to themselves authority which belongs to the State, it is an advantage to bring into prominence the sovereignty of the nation. ”

“ That there are individuals besides the honorable gentleman who do maintain these opinions, is quite certain. I recollect the recent expression of a sentiment, which circumstances attending its utterance and publication justify us in supposing was not unpremeditated. "The sovereignty of the State,—never to be controlled, construed, or decided on, but by her own feelings of honorable justice." ”

“ In other words, they will do so because they have surrendered one of the most vital elements in the independent life of a State—the right of conducting its own policy—to the jurisdiction of a higher Power. ”

“ And all the unheeded tears and cries
⁠They caused in lust of lawless power.
He builds the state who to that task
⁠Brings strong, clean hands, and purpose pure;
Who wears not virtue as a mask;
⁠He builds the state that shall endure—
The state wherein each loyal son
⁠Holds as a birthright from true sires
Treasures of honor, nobly won,
⁠And freedom's never-dying fires. ”

“ They laid down the doctrine that governments were instituted among men for the purpose of preserving the rights of the people. The old idea was that people existed solely for the benefit of the state—that is to say, for kings and nobles. ”

“ Ans.: "The state is a class instrument, and is the public power of coercion created and maintained in human societies by their division into classes, a power which, being clothed with force, makes laws." ”

“ Exalt the citizen. As the State is the unit of government he is the unit of the State. Teach him that his home is his castle, and his sovereignty rests beneath his hat. Make himself self-respecting, self-reliant and responsible. ”

“ But, gentlemen, pursue this view of the subject. The longer the reign, the influence of that sovereign must proportionately increase. All the illustrious statesmen who served his youth disappear. A new generation of public servants rises up, there is a critical conjunction in affairs—a moment of perplexity and peril. Then it is that the sovereign can appeal to a similar state of affairs that occurred perhaps thirty years before. ”

“ So long as the State preserves its power among the people, the people must render their obedience to the State,—to the sovereign in whom the contract was vested. The might of the political State makes right. ”

“ But how would they be answered if the representative and constituent bodies were both thoroughly instructed in the sacred character and paramount authority and importance of the duties which belong to the high function of sovereignty? We justly deny and deride the divine right of kings; and we assert and maintain the divine right of the people to self government. ”

“ Neither does the Church condemn those who, if it can be done without violation of justice, wish to make their country independent of any foreign or despotic power. Nor does she blame those who wish to assign to the State the power of self-government, and to its citizens the greatest possible measure of prosperity. ”

“ But it should never be forgotten that the problem of the State is essentially a spiritual one. Political forms and institutions, legal systems, legislative enactments, all the charters and codes and statutes in Christendom, are valid and stable only as they tend to assure freedom and justice to individuals. ”

“ The fabric of our Empire rises with ever expanding responsibilities. How are we to maintain the foundation of moral character on which it must rest? The State cannot ignore the question. The Church exists to give an answer. ”

“ The servitude of a constitutional King, so often a puppet in the hands of the worst and meanest of men—those who prostitute their powers as rulers of a State to their interests as chiefs of a faction—must seem pitiable to any rational manhood. ”

“ Because, forsooth, the newspapers, voicing the wishes of the rabble and the cormorants of trade, cry down the "Bloody Shirt," proclaiming, with brazen effrontery, that each State is "sovereign," and that its citizens have a perfect right to terrorize and murder one another, if they so desire. The Bible declares that "Righteousness exalteth a nation; but sin is a reproach to any people." ”

“ Because a State in which law is authoritative and sovereign, a firm and settled course of public order, is requisite if man is to bring to maturity anything precious and lasting now, or to found anything precious and lasting for the future. ”

“ You may find, too, a delight in contemplating the exercise of despotic power, joined with insistance on the salutariness of a state in which the wills of slaves and citizens are humbly subject to the wills of masters and rulers—a sentiment also reminding us of that ancient Oriental life which biblical narratives portray. ”

“ And it may be added that the sovereignty of the people, as a divine trust, may be as logically deduced from the divine institution of government as the old divine right of kings. Government, by whatever name it is called, is a matter of experience and expediency. If we submit to the will of the majority, it is because it is more convenient to do so; and if the republic or the democracy vindicate itself, it is because it works best, on the whole, for a particular people. ”

“ This doctrine is deeply impressed in the genius of our common law, which informs us, by unquestionable maxims, that no man is worthy to hold the reins of administration who cannot maintain the national justice, the chief object of which is certainly, personal protection. 'Cessa regnare, si non vis judicare,' Cease to reign, if you will not do justice, and the reason of this is plain from another maxim, 'Vita Reipublicæ, pax—et animus libertas—et corpus, leges,' peace is the life—and liberty the soul—and the laws the body of the commonwealth. ”

“ It is irresistibly certain that He who ordains government has, alone, the right to alter or abolish it,--that He who institutes the powers that be has, alone, the right to say when and how the people, in whole or in part, may resist. ”

“ I say 'ends the same in principle with that served by the state itself,' because, if the state arose out of the action of men determined, indeed, by the consciousness of ends, but ends wholly heterogeneous to that realised by the state, it would not be a moral institution, would not stand in any moral relation to men. Now among the influences that have operated in the formation of states, a large part, it must be admitted, are simply natural. ”

“ Have justice and mercy, therefore, constantly before your eyes, and above all things reflect that you were born for the welfare of your people, and not your country created for your mere emolument. In short, keep to the golden rule of doing as you would be done by, and whenever you give an order as a sovereign examine how far you would be willing to obey such an order were you a subject. ”

“ We propose to use the term The Great State to express this ideal of a social system no longer localised, no longer immediately tied to and conditioned by the cultivation of the land, worldwide in its interests and outlook and catholic in its tolerance and sympathy, a system of great individual freedom with a universal understanding among its citizens of a collective thought and purpose. ”

“ You must contrive for your future rulers another and a better life than that of a ruler, and then you may have a well-ordered State; for only in the State which offers this, will they rule who are truly rich, not in silver and gold, but in virtue and wisdom, which are the true blessings of life. ”

“ For if sovereign authority is derived formally from the consent of the people and not from God, who is the supreme and Eternal Principle of all power, it loses in the eyes of the governed its most august characteristic and degenerates into an artificial sovereignty which rests on unstable and shifting bases, namely, the will of those from whom it is said to be de- rived. ”

“ Now government is no other than the soul of a nation or city: wherefore that which was reason in the debate of a commonwealth being brought forth by the result, must be virtue; and forasmuch as the soul of a city or nation is the sovereign power, her virtue must be law. But the government whose law is virtue, and whose virtue is law, is the same whose empire is authority, and whose authority is empire. ”

“ But the terrible and innumerable quarrels and disorders that would necessarily arise from so dangerous a privilege, show, more than anything else, how much human government stood in need of a more solid basis than mere reason, and how expedient it was for the public tranquillity that the divine will should interpose to invest the sovereign authority with a sacred and inviolable character, which might deprive subjects of the fatal right of disposing of it. ”

“ The Empire has yielded to the Monarchy, the Monarchy to the Republic, the Republic to the Empire again, and that once more to the Republic, but the Code which embodies the principle of equality before the law has remained. Fundamentally the social equilibrium has been stable. ”

“ Virtually he argues that states have been formed as the only alternative to the state of nature, or, on his showing, to anarchy and barbarism. The supremacy and unity of the sovereign power is therefore an expression of the essential condition of civilised life. ”

“ They are sound and liberal, and based on the great principle of the public good being the end of all government—the principle that kings reign, not for themselves, but for their people; while, in all their administration, they ought to be swayed and regulated by the laws of an authority higher than their own, by a regard to the Will of God as their rule, and the Glory of God, to which all else must ever be subordinate, as their supreme aim. ”

“ The sovereign authority is then established only for the common good of all the citizens. The sovereign thus clothed with the public authority, with everything that constitutes the moral personality of the nation, of course becomes bound by the moral obligations of that nation and invested with its rights. ”

“ Even if it were shown that a proud, haughty, and powerful nation like England, had made war upon other provinces, on the ground of a mere recognition, the single example could not alter the public law, or shake the strength of a clear principle.
But what has been our uniform practice? We have constantly proceeded on the principle, that the government de facto is that we can alone notice. Whatever form of government any society of people adopts, whoever they acknowledge as their sovereign, we consider that government or that sovereign as the one to be acknowledged by us. ”