Stationary state

“ After all, the choice of a state space in which to represent a system is just a choice of how to describe that system, and so to notice that a system’s behavior is constrained in one space is just to notice that the system’s behavior is constrained period, though the degree of constraint can vary. ”

“ If, in order to determine what an absolutely static condition for the central society would be, we were to apply the rule of imagining all new dynamic influences precluded and of allowing time enough to elapse to bring about a normal apportionment of population within that limited area, we should encounter a measure of the same difficulty which confronted us when we proposed to attain a similar static state for the entire world, though the trouble would be less serious in degree. ”

“ A strong centralization within the State may be the most hurtful kind of concentration, for it may more vitally affect the people at home. Here the question, remember, is not the most efficient formal administration, but the best results for the people. ”

“ From these the distribution will be to subordinate situations in the country. Accidental circumstances however may control the indications of nature, and in no instance do they do it more frequently than in the rise and fall of towns. ”

“ The tendency of a longer period of service would be to render the body more stable in its policy, and more capable of stemming popular currents taking a wrong direction, till reason and justice could regain their ascendency. ”

“ Whether they could not or would not conform to the newer condition of stationary or comparatively stationary society is not much to the point in presence of the fact that nowhere have they conformed to this standard of existence. ”

“ The absence of any provision whatever in the organic law of Territory, which can be so construed as to meet our wants in the present emergency, requires that a generous confidence be reposed in the general government. ”

“ Is it not safer to wait with patience 27 years and three months longer, for the attainment of any degree of population desired, or expected? May not our government be more homogeneous, more peaceable, more durable? ”

“ Neither, again, is it necessary that states which are cut off from others and choose to live alone should be inactive; for activity, as well as other things, may take place by sections; there are many ways in which the sections of a state act upon one another. ”

“ Numerous states yet unformed, myriads of the human race, who will inhabit regions hitherto uncultivated, were to be affected by the result of their proceedings. It was necessary, therefore, to form their calculations on a scale commensurate to a large portion of the globe. ”

“ Some people confuse the terms and ideas, concentration and centralization. Proper concentration in complete units by an earlier convergence of authority permits decentralization in administration. A lack of such early concentration makes centralization inevitable. ”

“ The powers of government shall be divided into three distinct departments, each of them to be confided to a separate body of magistracy; to wit, those which are legislative to one, those which are judiciary to another, and those which are executive to another. No person, or collection of persons, being of one of these departments, shall exercise any power properly belonging to either of the others, except in the instances hereinafter expressly permitted. ”

“ But if a local government, entirely or principally, derives its immediate origin from the locality itself, it naturally tends to clash with the central authority, or with the general administration;—the tendency being greater or less as its territory is larger or smaller, as its immediate origin is more or less popular, and as its attributes are more or less extensive. ”

“ For, without some duration of the identical, we should have meaningless chaos, or, rather, should not have even that. States may endure, we have seen, so long as we abstract. We take some partial state, or aspect of a state, which in itself does not alter. We fix one eye upon this, while we cast, in fear of no principle, our other eye upon the succession that goes with it, and so is called simultaneous. And we solve practically in this way the problem of duration. We have enduring aspects, A, B, C, one after the other. ”

“ For this reason that convention, which passed the ordinance of government, laid its foundation on this basis, that the legislative, executive and judiciary departments should be separate and distinct, so that no person should exercise the powers of more than one of them at the same time. ”

“ My contention is that if we should make such advances in statical interpretation that we could accurately formulate the equilibrium of the societies which have transmitted civilization in every epoch from the beginning to the present, we should, in consequence, be in possession of means, first for generalizations of statical laws ”

“ It not only includes the existence of a power placed above society, but also a territorial concentration and a concentration of many functions of the life of society in the hands of a few or even of all. ”

“ Can the general government exercise any power not delegated? If an enumeration be made of our rights, will it not be implied that every thing omitted is given to the general government? Has not the honorable gentleman himself admitted that an imperfect enumeration is dangerous? Does the Constitution say that they shall not alter the law of descents, or do those things which would subvert the whole system of the state laws? ”

“ For instance, your State has now scarcely the privileges of a simple territory; your interests differ entirely from those of the central States of the Republic. Every day your laws are becoming more centralised. ”

“ There are a few other departments of minor consequence, but all are carried on so noiselessly and quietly that the evidence of a government seems to vanish altogether, and social order to be as regular and unobtrusive as if it were a law of nature. ”

“ In any state where the seat of central authority is distant or its power only exercised feebly and at intervals, the local units secure much greater independence and importance, through the very necessity of performing many functions left unheeded by the ruler of all ”

“ This observation naturally leads to a more particular consideration of the government before us. In order, sir, to give permanency, stability, and security to any government, I conceive it of essential importance, that its legislature should be restrained; that there should not only be what we call a passive, but an active power over it, for, of all kinds of despotism, this is the most dreadful, and the most difficult to be corrected. ”

“ The system of a triple division of specific powers, each one of which was vigorous in its own sphere while at the same time checked and balanced by the other branches of the government, has certain advantages and certain disadvantages. ”

“ A little examination into the condition of affairs in this State will show that this is not the case, and that what the people do is only done in order that they may be restored to power so as to change the direction in which affairs are tending. ”

“ When public bodies are engaged in the exercise of general powers, you cannot judge of the propriety of their conduct, but from the result of their systems. They may be forming plans which required time and diligence to bring to maturity. ”

“ Of the many misconceptions of centralization which have fallen under our observation, the following, we think, are the most prevalent and important:—1. It is confounded with over-governing. 2. It is thought incompatible with the spirit, if not with the forms, of free or popular government. 3. It is thought incompatible with local governments of local and popular origin. 4. In France, Prussia, and other continental countries, the governments of localities, with the lower branches of the general administration, are controlled to excess by the heads of the latter ”

“ At one epoch a state will suffer from having too few laws, at another from having too many. Particular classes of persons may lose or gain at one period of legislation, and other classes may lose or gain at another. ”

“ If the inhabitants of the different states consider it as a grievance to attend a county court, or the seat of their own government, when a little inconvenient, can it be supposed they would ever submit to have a national government established, the seat of which would be more than a thousand miles removed from some of them? ”

“ The choices of a state-space also constitutes a choice of dynamics: for a system with a high degree of dynamical complexity, there are a large number of state spaces which evince not only interesting static detail, but interesting dynamical detail as well. ”

“ The Efficiency of Static Forces in Dynamic Societies.—The static state which has thus far been kept in view is a hypothetical one, for there is no actual society which is not changing its form and the character of its activities. Five organic changes, which we shall soon study, are going on in every economic society; and yet the striking fact is that, in spite of this, a civilized society usually has, at each particular date, a shape that conforms in some degree to the one which, under the conditions existing at that date, the static forces acting alone would give to it. ”

“ Sir, it is a truth sufficiently illustrated by experience, that when the people act by their representatives, they are commonly irresistible. The gentleman admits the position, that stability is essential to the government, and yet enforces principles which, if true, ought to banish stability from the system. The gentleman observes, that there is a fallacy in my reasoning, and informs us that the legislatures of the states, not the people, are to appoint the senators. ”

“ The consequences vary with concrete conditions; hence at one time and place a large measure of state activity may be indicated and at another time a policy of quiescence and laissez-faire. Just as publics and states vary with conditions of time and place, so do the concrete functions which should be carried on by states. There is no antecedent universal proposition which can be laid down because of which the functions of a state should be limited or should be expanded. Their scope is something to be critically and experimentally determined. ”

“ The intrinsic tendency of such governments to clash with the central authority, is enhanced by a cause which still operates although its origin is remote. Almost every extensive country is an aggregate of units, which, in substance at least, were once independent states ”

“ It contributes, at least, in a high degree, to accomplish a principal end of centralized and regular government;—the giving the greatest efficiency, as well as the greatest order, to the administrative system of the country. ”

“ There is centralized authority in full play. There a function of government claiming to be supreme, removed from the original source of sovereignty to an unmeasurable distance, entrenched in irresponsibility, endeavoring gradually to absorb all the organized powers around it. Sir, it requires but little sagacity to discern the danger and to foresee the consequences. ”

“ For though the family is prior to the State in order of time, the State is prior to the family and to the individual in order of thought, and in reality. For the State is the end, and the end is always prior to that of which it is the end. The state as form is prior to the family as matter, and in the same way the family is prior to the individual. And as the explanation of things is only possible by teleology, it is the end which explains the beginning, it is the State which explains the family, and not vice versa. ”

“ The history of our state departments is like that of some Continental governments, unintelligent endurance through long periods on the part of the people, tempered by spasmodic outbursts of indignation and ineffectual reorganization of the institutions themselves. ”

“ In such a state of things, scarcely admitting any change of station, society would settle itself down into several strata, separated by no marked lines, but shading off imperceptibly from top to bottom, nothing disturbing the order of their repose. ”

“ Now so great a mass of men could not be administered except through this decentralization of authority, and the corollary of short service universally applied is the full territorial system, in which the whole enrolled strength of the district is subjected to the authority of the district commander. ”

“ Distance is time, and when by steam, whether on water or on land, personal communication is facilitated, and when orders are conveyed from one extremity of the Empire to another almost like a flash of lightning, the facility of governing a large State becomes almost equal to the facility of governing the smallest. ”

“ It would be in the power, then, of less than one third to overrule two thirds, whenever a question should happen to divide the states in that manner. Can we forget for whom we are forming a government? Is it for men, or for the imaginary beings called states? Will our honest constituents be satisfied with metaphysical distinctions? ”

“ The compact itself expressly provides that all powers not delegated are reserved to the states and the people. To ascertain, then, whether the power in question is delegated or reserved, it is only necessary to ascertain whether it is to be found among the enumerated powers or not. ”

“ This assumption of power has become every day more confirmed, and the addresses which are received by the Assembly, though yet in a strain of gross adulation,* express such an abhorrence of the late system, as must suffice to convince them the people are not disposed to see such a system continued. ”

“ The distribution of power between the central authority and the local Societies varies, but in some cases, for instance among the spinners, the local societies approximate as closely to the status of mere branches, as to that of independent units federated for limited objects. ”