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 The state 
 
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 3 1924 031 446 366 
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 Library 
 
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 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031446366 
 
THE STATE 
 
 irts mature, ©rfgin, anb jfunctions, 
 
 AND THE 
 
 Duties of Cftisens 
 
 an address 
 
 By L. T. chamberlain 
 before the patria club 
 
 New York, April ii, i8g8 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY 
 5 AND 7 East Sixteenth Street 
 
THE STATE 
 
 Mr. President, Ladies and Gen- 
 tlemen, Members of the Patria 
 Club : 
 
 Permit me to acknowledge the 
 honor which you have conferred on 
 me, by inviting me to speak to you on 
 " The Nature, Origin, and Functions 
 of the State." I could wish for my- 
 self a far higher ability to interest and 
 inspire, yet I am comforted by the 
 thought that "the cause is strong, 
 and can bear the weakness of its 
 advocate." 
 
 Certainly, there are few subjects so 
 vital to both individual and general 
 
THE STATE 
 
 well-being as this which is now before 
 us. Included in the matters with 
 which the Patria Club is concerned, 
 it shows the profound importance of 
 your undertaking, and more than jus- 
 tifies the earnestness with which you 
 work. 
 
 And here, as preliminary to the 
 main treatment, let me point to the 
 distinction between the state and the 
 government. The distinction is nat- 
 ural and needful. It is suggestively 
 analogous to that between religion 
 and the Church ; between art and pro- 
 ductions which are termed artistic ; 
 between science and results in which 
 science is said to be expressed ; be- 
 tween righteous authority and con- 
 trolling power ; between justice and 
 
FIRST PRINCIPLES 
 
 statute law. The state is the prece- 
 dent, underlying verity which gov- 
 ernment is intended to embody and 
 represent. The government is the 
 organization through which the state 
 acts, a contrivance whose sole use is 
 to realize the purpose of the state. 
 When Louis XIV., in his boastful 
 youth, declared "L'^lai cesi moi," " I 
 am the state," he confounded the 
 state with the government. Wiser, 
 more discriminating, was his dying 
 word, "Je men vais, mats Vitat de- 
 meurera toujour s," " I depart, but 
 the state will endure forever." 
 
 The state is the political ideal, as 
 veritable as the moral ideal, and seen 
 in as varied degrees of realization. 
 Essentially, the state has justice as 
 its breath of life, good-will as its in- 
 3 
 
THE STATE 
 
 forming spirit, and righteous law as 
 its word of command. Very imper- 
 fectly those characteristics may be 
 embodied in governmental form ; they 
 may be subjected to shameful admin- 
 istrative contradictions ; yet they are 
 characteristics still, and wherever the 
 state comes to view, it is known by 
 those essential features. Forms of 
 government are to be judged by the 
 imperishable ideal of the state, as forms 
 of society are judged by the imperish- 
 able ideal of the brotherhood of man. 
 And, still by way of preliminary, 
 let me declare the truth that, whatever 
 analysis of the nature of the state, and 
 whatever division of its functions may, 
 here or elsewhere, be made, the state 
 has, under God, its germinant begin- 
 ning and its generic end in the indi- 
 
 4 
 
FIRST PRINCIPLES 
 
 vidual person. That the individual 
 may be invested with something of 
 the dignity which inheres in his very 
 manhood ; that the individual thus 
 recognized in his manhood, may be 
 so placed as to permit his own best 
 development ; that the individual thus 
 recognized in his manhood and thus 
 guaranteed in the freedom of his self- 
 development, may, with due regard to 
 the well-being of all, be most wisely 
 helped to do, and to become, whatever 
 is worthiest ; for that purpose inten- 
 sive and extensive, specific and gen- 
 eral, the state exists. I do not forget 
 the declaration of Aristotle, that the 
 state exists before even the individual ; 
 nor do I fail to remember that there 
 still are those who believe that the 
 safety of the state, and not the safety 
 S 
 
THE STATE 
 
 of the people, is the supreme law — 
 salus civitatis, non salus populi, 
 suprema lex : nevertheless, the truth 
 remains that the individual — the peo- 
 ple being made up of individuals — is 
 the beginning and the end, the termi- 
 nus a quo and the terminus ad quem, 
 of all that is called the state. 
 
 And this is laid down at the outset, 
 for the twofold reason that, on the 
 one hand, there is ever the danger, in 
 viewing what is elaborate, cumula- 
 tive, imposing, of overlooking what 
 is still, and, after all, fundamental — 
 the very mass and magnificence ob- 
 scuring the simple integer by means 
 of which the whole has been con- 
 structed. The perfection of an army's 
 majestic might requires that it move 
 in ordered array and with resistless 
 6 
 
FIRST PRINCIPLES 
 
 momentum — the flash of swords like 
 the gleam of lightning ; the roar of 
 musketry and cannon like the peal of 
 thunder ; the impact of assault like 
 the crash of the avalanche ; — ^yet the 
 unchanging unit of even such organ- 
 ized and impressive power is, and 
 must be, the individual soldier intelli- 
 gently faithful to command, and bear- 
 ing within him a heart dauntlessly 
 courageous. 
 
 At the same time, and on the other 
 hand, it is well to have the practical 
 beginning and the comprehensive end 
 acknowledged at the outset, that, there- 
 after, as occasion shall arise, we may 
 be privileged to go round about our 
 political Zion, and tell her towers, 
 and mark her bulwarks, and consider 
 7 
 
THE STATE 
 
 her palaces, without the disturbing 
 charge that we are overlooking the 
 deep foundations, and forgetting the 
 controlling purpose ! 
 
 Moreover, this conception of the 
 individual's sacred and decisive emi- 
 nence, points us toward the truth con- 
 cerning the essential nature of the 
 state, as well as concerning its origin, 
 and the powers which it may justly 
 claim. It is a criterion by whose test 
 the inadequacy, the unsoundness, of 
 many a current conception, is clearly 
 shown. 
 
 For example, and as you well know, 
 there are those who hold and teach 
 that, while the state is indispensable, 
 it is conditioned in evil, rather than 
 in good. They aver that the state is 
 
NOT MERELY JURAL 
 
 mainly concerned with the worser pos- 
 sibilities, finding its chief vindication 
 in combating wrong, and curbing dis- 
 order, and repressing violence, and 
 preventing anarchy. They say that 
 government, as representing the state, 
 is a burden which the race is now 
 doomed to bear ; a burden which, as 
 the race progresses, will gradually be 
 lightened, until, in the millennial day, 
 it may be wholly removed. In short, 
 they maintain that the state is little 
 more than a jural society, whose aim 
 is to keep the peace, and whose 
 use is the safe-guarding of private 
 rights. 
 
 But that conception identifies the 
 
 state, in too large degree, with mere 
 
 police authority, and unduly limits its 
 
 vocation, to the upholding of an ex- 
 
 9 
 
THE STATE 
 
 ternal order. It makes the court- 
 room and the prison the special repre- 
 sentatives of the state, and measures 
 the citizen's relation to governmental 
 power, in terms of offence and retri- 
 bution. It lacks the prime requisites 
 of freedom, of inspiration, of construc- 
 tive force, of imperishable vitality. 
 Out of no such meagre notion, believe 
 it, have come either the aspirations of 
 the liberty-loving, or the self-denials 
 of the patriotic, or the self-sacrifice of 
 civic martyrs. By no such scant ideal 
 have oppressions been overthrown and 
 tyrannies put to rout. 
 
 It is true that Kant once defined 
 the state as " the association of men 
 under a system of laws ; " but that 
 was because he parted the moral and 
 the legal, and put them in separate 
 
NOT MERELY JURAL 
 
 spheres. Against that sundering, 
 morality and law themselves protest. 
 Conscience, no less than reason, is ex- 
 pressed in action ; statutes get their 
 authority from the moral sense ; the 
 external lives by the internal ; and 
 history records the truth that all gov- 
 ernment which deserves the name, 
 looks beyond the comparative nar- 
 rowness of individual rights, to the 
 .breadth of individual achievement 
 and the true splendor of national re- 
 nown. 
 
 Likewise, and by parity of reason, 
 the conception which makes the state 
 a society for the promotion of trade 
 and traffic, for the security and en- 
 largement of creature comfort — 
 Chamber of Commerce, Produce Ex- 
 
THE STATE 
 
 change, and Insurance Company, com- 
 bined — is incomplete and unworthy. 
 Doubtless, the existence of the state 
 is essential to business prosperity. 
 One purpose of the state is to pro- 
 mote material production and com- 
 mercial distribution. The interchanges 
 of commonwealths and nations can be 
 assured in their safety and profit, only 
 by the sanctions of governments and 
 laws. Yet the state also seeks ends 
 which are vastly higher. 
 
 In the affairs of the state, economic 
 truth is not the final word. Tables 
 of profit and loss, regulations of bar- 
 gain and sale, are not the matters of 
 chief public concern. The protection 
 of accumulated capital is not the pre- 
 eminent result. Rights of inheritance 
 and entail are not the central consid- 
 
NOT MERELY ECONOMIC 
 
 erations. Beyond all that, and prece- 
 dent to it, there must be the higher 
 aim and the stronger bond. You can- 
 not found the state on mutual selfish- 
 ness. The plan carries with it an un- 
 avoidable weakness. It puts a divisive 
 force at the centre. To heartless com- 
 petitions it assigns the seats of power. 
 When, accordingly, the loss exceeds 
 the profit, when capital is imperilled, 
 when material treasures are assailed, 
 the alliance is fatally impaired, and 
 the selfish combination gives place to 
 selfish strife. 
 
 No nation ever has lived, no nation 
 ever can live, by such a law. The 
 worth of personality, the value of lib- 
 erty, the sacredness of obligation, the 
 dignity of justice, the primacy of love, 
 the charm of patriotism, the power of 
 13 
 
THE STATE 
 
 religion — those are unreckoned with, 
 those are disesteemed. 
 
 But those, precisely, are the source 
 of national life and the essence of 
 national, strength. Those were the 
 considerations which moved the Athe- 
 nians, when Persia offered peace and 
 plenty, with servitude, to forsake their 
 outward possessions — even their city 
 and their homes — and, manning their 
 ships, to risk all in the battle of Sala- 
 mis. Those were the considerations 
 which inspired our own forefathers to 
 pledge fortune, along with life and 
 sacred honor, in the attempt to 
 achieve on this soil the national inde- 
 pendence and to perpetuate the true 
 national life. You may be sure that 
 when the money-changers and the 
 tradesmen have possessed themselves 
 14 
 
NOT MERELY ECONOMIC 
 
 of the temple, the Presence will rest 
 no more above the covenant's ark, 
 and the oracles will speak no more 
 the word of the living God. 
 
 The state is not a merely e"onomic 
 partnership, even as it is not a merely 
 jural agreement. The state is an or- 
 ganic unity. It moves with a moral 
 energy. It sets itself for the highest 
 weal of each and all. It claims for itself 
 a perpetual youth, an unending life. 
 
 But if these, and such as these, are 
 among the unwarranted conceptions 
 of the nature of the state, so there are 
 equally unwarranted conceptions of 
 the origin of the state. 
 
 Beyond question, the mistaken 
 theory of the origin of the state, which 
 IS 
 
THE STATE 
 
 in the last two centuries has gained 
 the widest acceptance and been upheld 
 by the most illustrious authorities, is 
 the theory of " social contract " — the 
 Contrat Social of Rousseau in France, 
 and measurably of Jefferson in the 
 United States. To that theory, for 
 substance of doctrine, Languet, Gro- 
 tius, Kant, Puffendorf, Hobbes, 
 Locke, have lent their unequalled 
 names. It has gathered about itself 
 a political literature of incomparable 
 volume. It has been appealed to in 
 support of every kind of political in- 
 stitution. 
 
 This theory assumes, as its initial 
 premise, a so-called " state of nature." 
 It peoples that state of nature with 
 primitive men. Those primitive men 
 are viewed as antecedent to society, 
 i6 
 
NOT BY SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 and as living in a boundless freedom. 
 Each is a law unto himself. The 
 primitive man, however, according to 
 this assumption, finds that certain de- 
 sirable results can best be reached by 
 co-operation. Therefore he enters into 
 combination with his fellows, volun- 
 tarily surrendering a part of his liberty, 
 while taking care that the rest of his 
 liberty shall be duly guaranteed. By 
 such process, we are told, he passes 
 from the natural to the artificial. 
 Thus there arises the social contract, 
 and with it the existence of the state ! 
 I speak with deference in the pres- 
 ence of distinguished members of the 
 bar, but is not such a theory of the 
 origin of the state a typical " legal 
 fiction " ? I understand that all widely 
 current legal fictions are, to some use- 
 17 
 
THE STATE 
 
 ful extent, the costumes or exponents 
 of underlying truths ; and it is to be 
 freely admitted that, under the con- 
 tractual theory, there is so much of 
 truth as this, to wit, that the state has 
 its origin in indissoluble connection 
 with man's free will, man's self-deter- 
 mination, and that it exists for a well- 
 being which isolated man might not 
 attain. The contractual theory is 
 consistent with the further fact that 
 man's determinate choice has to do 
 with the form of government and the 
 specific content of law, even as in 
 man's determinate choice is consti- 
 tuted the quality of his personal rela- 
 tion to the authority under which he 
 lives. The theory has this compre- 
 hensive merit, that it distinctly op- 
 poses the conception which makes the 
 
NOT BY SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 state one of nature's characterless, 
 necessitated products. 
 
 Yet the theory of a " social con- 
 tract " is, in the main, both false and 
 evil. Its "state of nature" is, indeed, 
 a fiction as needless as it is unhistori- 
 cal. Grant that there are, and have 
 been, men living in a savage lawless- 
 ness, it still is self-contradictory to 
 reckon that as the natural life ; for the 
 natural life is, and must be, the life 
 which corresponds to man's own nat- 
 ure, as embracing reason, conscience, 
 will. The savage life is essentially the 
 unnatural life ! Moreover, the veriest 
 savages are found, in their association 
 with one another, to possess a rudi- 
 mentary government and something 
 of at least unwritten law. Certain is 
 it that no trace can be discovered of 
 19 
 
THE STATE 
 
 men in such mental and moral ad- 
 vancement as the theory of social 
 contract necessarily presupposes, save 
 as members of a state already acknowl- 
 edged and to some extent revered. 
 
 Look, again, at the fatal incoher- 
 ence of the theory itself. Its indi- 
 viduals make the supposed contract 
 as private persons ; but, in logical se- 
 quence, all that eventuates from such 
 a process is private. The stream can- 
 not rise higher than its source. Pub- 
 lic rights are not constructed out of 
 surrendered private rights, nor are 
 public duties an impressive centraliz- 
 ing of the duties of individuals. Fur- 
 ther, a contract being optional, is ter- 
 minable. In the absence of a steadfast 
 enforcing power above it, it may be 
 disowned, with or without reasons as- 
 
NOT BY SOCIAL CONTRACT 
 
 signed. But, by the very terms of 
 the supposed contract, there is no su- 
 perior enforcing power. Consequently, 
 a state which is grounded in contract, 
 is built upon the sand. It has no real 
 unity, for the contracting parties re- 
 main individual bargainers, watchful 
 against each other's evasions or en- 
 croachments. It has no essential per- 
 manence, for it is dependent, at best, 
 on its mortal authors. It has no suf- 
 ficing authority, for its contractual the- 
 ory expressly denies the pre-existent, 
 self-existent power which alone can 
 substantiate and confirm. In vain is it 
 alleged that, in effect, the contract 
 lifts the parties to it out of the sphere 
 of contract, thus establishing the state 
 in sanctions final and sufficient. For. 
 even if a true establishing of the 
 
THE STATE 
 
 state ensues, it clearly is by way not 
 of such actual genesis, but of such 
 fortunate succession. In that case, 
 the contract stands, as may any one 
 of a thousand other circumstances, in 
 the relation of preliminary incident, 
 and not of creative origin. 
 
 The theory of a social contract pre- 
 sumes to found the state, yet has no 
 adequate conception of what the state 
 is. It postulates individual author- 
 ization. It makes concession to in- 
 dividual caprice. It produces, when 
 left to itself, the overthrow not only 
 of social order, but also of political 
 rights. In that hour, still within the 
 memory of men, when our own rivers 
 ran red with blood, and by every 
 hearthstone a Rachel wept her beau- 
 tiful dead, we were confronted with 
 
NOT BY POPULAR DECREE 
 
 some of the possibilities of such a 
 theory of the origin of the state. 
 
 And now, passing by the theory 
 which founds the state in sheer physi- 
 cal force, the direct subjugation of the 
 weaker by the stronger, a brief word 
 will suffice for that other sounding and 
 specious theory which claims that the 
 state comes into being by the sov- 
 ereign act of the sovereign people. 
 Under this theory it is held that the 
 people, not as individuals, but as the 
 people, are inherently supreme. It is 
 affirmed that popular sovereignty is 
 primordial, self-originated, self-sus- 
 tained, self-sufficient. It is taught 
 that since popular sovereignty is un- 
 derived, its accountability is to itself 
 23 
 
THE STATE 
 
 alone, and that, in consistency, it can 
 admit of no superior control. 
 
 It would be interesting to know, 
 with definiteness, what is meant in 
 such a scheme by "the people." If the 
 phrase means the mass, the popula- 
 tion, there is nothing in it to distin- 
 guish the people from the mob ; and 
 it can hardly be maintained that in the 
 unorganized mass there inheres a true 
 political supremacy. On the other 
 hand, if the phrase means the body 
 politic, the people already conscious 
 of public rights, already united in a 
 common political purpose, and acting 
 as by a common self-determination, 
 then it concedes the precedent exist- 
 ence of the very reality for which it 
 essays to account. 
 
 No ! There is no such bald and 
 24 
 
NOT BY POPULAR DECREE 
 
 barren sovereignty of men as this 
 theory assigns. There is no such un- 
 moral yet authorized might, with which 
 justice and love have no concern. 
 There is no such irresponsible yet 
 legitimated dominion, over which rea- 
 son and right have no jurisdiction. 
 In truth, it would well comport with 
 such a theory, to hold that justice 
 itself exists by the grace of the peo- 
 ple, and that right is validated by a 
 majority vote ! It is, after all, but 
 another form of the theoty of force. 
 Under it, there is no adequate basis 
 of human rights, and it excludes the 
 essential muniments of personal free- 
 dom. In its rejection of an eternal 
 morality, by which even the people 
 are bound, and to which they are di- 
 rectly amenable, it flouts the convic- 
 
 25 
 
THE STATE 
 
 tions and the aspirations of the race. 
 It enthrones that political atheism 
 which has been, in fact, the nursing 
 mother of absolutism and imperial- 
 ism, no less than of the worst popular 
 tyrannies which history has known. 
 
 What, then, is the truth concern- 
 ing the nature and origin of the state ? 
 The rightful answer is that the state 
 exists implicitly in the very structure 
 of man, as that structure has been di- 
 vinely framed. Its nature and origin, 
 therefore, are divine, even as its de- 
 velopment is toward a divinely con- 
 stituted end. Man does not create 
 the state. Neither as an individual, 
 nor as belonging to an organization 
 of individuals, does he originate pub- 
 26 
 
DIVINELY CONSTITUTED 
 
 lie authority or decree the existence 
 of public rights. That authority and 
 those rights are inherently indepen- 
 dent of his sanctions. By his very 
 constitution, as Aristotle asserted, man 
 is a political being. If man is true to 
 himself, he will own, on due occasion, 
 his political relations with his fellow- 
 men, and will give to those relations 
 his reverent regard. Wherever, under 
 suitable territorial conditions, there 
 are people moved by a common polit- 
 ical aim, and deciding their course 
 by a common will — in other words, 
 where there is a body politic and a 
 fit domain — there the state appears 
 and begins to unfold its righteous 
 power. The state is born, not made. 
 Man himself comes into being under 
 the relations of the state, as veritably 
 27 
 
THE STATE 
 
 as under the relations of society. Of 
 course, the individual may repudiate 
 the one and dishonor the other ; but 
 if he heeds his own reason and con- 
 science, he will admit his necessary 
 membership in the state, even as he 
 admits his necessary partnership with 
 neighbor and friend. Man can no 
 more live a rational, moral, civilized 
 life, apart from political organization, 
 than apart from social order. 
 
 Accordingly, the records testify 
 that no people has ever assumed to 
 give the state existence by either 
 formal contract or legislative enact- 
 ment. In even the earliest political 
 deliberations and averments, it has 
 been rightly held that the state 
 was already real. In our own his- 
 tory, the state, the nation, was a 
 28 
 
NECESSARY TO MAN 
 
 recognized fact, before there was 
 either a declared independence or 
 an accepted constitution. It was in 
 the name of a "people " conscious of 
 political unity, and acting by a com- 
 mon self-determination, that the first 
 decisive word was spoken and the 
 first formal deed was done. In view 
 of the state as a condition precedent, 
 our form of government was deter- 
 mined and proclaimed. So, in effect, 
 has it been since history began. 
 
 Plainly, therefore, the state, with 
 its administrative agencies, is not 
 mainly conditioned in evil, having 
 for its chief object the putting down 
 of violence and wrong ; nor is it an 
 association for the furtherance of 
 29 
 
THE STATE 
 
 merely material progress : even as the 
 state does not originate in a specific 
 social contract, nor yet in either 
 physical force, or the bald sovereign- 
 ty of the people's might. The state, 
 as duly embodied in governmental 
 form, is the institution of rights im- 
 memorial and divine. It has its be- 
 ginning in the very fact of a people 
 united in political thought and pur- 
 pose. It assumes outward . expres- 
 sion, in accordance with the people's 
 will. It finds its controlling end in 
 the people's highest well-being. 
 
 See this, moreover — in sequence 
 
 and summary of what has preceded — 
 
 that the state is from God, through 
 
 and for the people. It is from God, 
 
 30 
 
FOR THE PEOPLE 
 
 for He has made man a political 
 being, and has thereby given the state 
 its primal sanction. It is through 
 the people, for it is constituted in hu- 
 man relationships, is attested by the 
 people's approval, and takes its form 
 in harmony with the people's will. 
 It is for the people, since its object 
 is the people's welfare. Could it be 
 conceived as setting for itself another 
 object, it would destroy its own au- 
 gust right, and pluck from its brow 
 its own glorious crown. As was de- 
 clared of old, "The object of the 
 state is not merely that men may 
 live, but that they may live nobly." 
 
 And here, as touching the preroga- 
 tive of the state thus originated, thus 
 31 
 
THE STATE 
 
 embodied, and thus pre-destined, wit- 
 ness, I pray you, that the state is above 
 the people, at the same time that it 
 is through and for the people. Nor 
 deem this a contradiction. Take, for 
 suggestive parallel, the obligation of 
 justice as between man and man. 
 That obligation is given practical force 
 by the man's own free approval. He 
 himself determines its reasonable ap- 
 plication to the existing case. Yet 
 that obligation is clearly above the 
 man, at whose hands it is thus honored 
 and applied. It inheres in his own 
 moral sense. He can neither escape 
 its jurisdiction nor destroy its right. 
 He can defy it. Yet, in that event, 
 it were far better for him that a mill- 
 stone had been hanged about his neck 
 and he had been drowned in the depth 
 32 
 
ABOVE THE PEOPLE 
 
 of the sea. He cannot live his own 
 free, reasonable, ascending life, save 
 by paying to that obligation his glad 
 obeisance, and crowning it forever- 
 more ! He can rule, only by willing 
 obedience. 
 
 In like manner, the state recognized, 
 approved, governmentally instituted, 
 by the people, is above the people. 
 Next to God, it claims and deserves 
 the people's homage. Not even the 
 so-called sovereign people, not even 
 the free body politic, may rightfully 
 lift hand against the state, although at 
 its birth they were present and in its 
 outward organization they had decisive 
 part. Once existing, the state is in- 
 violable. The government which rep- 
 resents the state, may be amended. 
 The government which misrepresents 
 33 
 
THE STATE 
 
 and betrays the state, may be over- 
 thrown. But they who assail the 
 state itself, assail the condition of all 
 civilized, rational life — their own in- 
 cluded — and, so far forth, are sui- 
 cides, as well as traitors to God and 
 man. 
 
 It is our felicity, in this land, that 
 government may be regarded as prac- 
 tically synonymous with the state, so 
 consonant with the nature and true 
 functions of the state are our consti- 
 tution and our laws. Here, we are 
 spared the necessity of perpetually 
 and painfully differentiating the state 
 from its outward manifestation. Here, 
 therefore, it should the more readily 
 appear that the state, in its enforcing 
 of public rights and in its subserving 
 of the public welfare, is above even 
 
 34 
 
ABOVE THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 the people as a whole. Here, it 
 should easily be the accustomed 
 thought that the state, being from 
 God, through and for the people, 
 holds its sceptre by a thrice-sacred 
 right. 
 
 Hardly need it be added that if the 
 state is above even the people as a 
 whole, it certainly is above the indi- 
 vidual. We talk fluently and vehe- 
 mently of individual rights which are 
 inalienable, meaning thereby rights 
 which cannot be justly taken away, 
 unless they have first been forfeited 
 by crime. We confidently mention 
 life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
 ness, as being thus inalienable. Is 
 that, then, their real quality and grade ? 
 Yes, as against the dominion of a fel- 
 35 
 
THE STATE 
 
 low- man, or against the dominion of 
 any mere aggregation of one's fellow- 
 men. Neither in one individual, nor 
 in a million individuals considered as 
 individuals, is there the right to harm 
 one hair of your head or mine, save as 
 we ourselves have wilfully broken the 
 common bond. 
 
 Contrariwise, the state, wielding 
 supreme governmental power, and 
 having in view the common weal, 
 counts even life, liberty, and the pur- 
 suit of happiness, as but subservient 
 means. Reverently it proceeds, but 
 without suspense. In time of war, to 
 save a nation's life, it sends to death 
 its bravest and its best. In time of 
 contagion, to protect the many, it 
 forbids liberty of even domicile and 
 movement. At any time, so as the 
 36 
 
OF RIGHT SUPREME 
 
 pursuit of happiness over-passes the 
 limits of law, it turns back the pur- 
 suit and inflicts the law's rebuke. 
 And this, observe, it does "of right" ! 
 In so doing, it but moves in the cor- 
 respondencies of its holy mission. 
 To do otherwise would be to vio- 
 late its sacred charter, to break its 
 tacit pledge, and to betray the people's 
 trust. Within the limits of possibility 
 and of fundamental right, the state's 
 jurisdiction is bounded by naught, save 
 the true, permanent well-being of the 
 people, man by man, and as a whole. 
 That competent jurisdiction extends 
 to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, 
 property, customs, statutes, institu- 
 tions, vested interests. The things it 
 does not include, are those few things 
 which are elemental in ethics and es- 
 37 
 
THE STATE 
 
 sential in personal experience. The 
 state may not fail to honor justice. It 
 may not fail to reverence man as man. 
 It may not fail to hold men equal 
 before the law. It may not fail to 
 keep faithfully in view the indivisible 
 yet two-fold end, of making the most 
 of the individual, and of advancing the 
 highest welfare of the people as a 
 whole. Barring such self-evident, 
 axiomatic limitations, the state is, un- 
 der God, supreme. 
 
 To the state, therefore, and it has 
 been with this in mind that I have 
 spoken — to the state thus begun, 
 thus confirmed, thus employed, and 
 thus empowered, how great our ob- 
 ligation, how profound our duty ! I 
 38 
 
TO BE REVERENCED 
 
 remember that, of old, one laid un- 
 sanctioned hand upon the ark of 
 God, and the penalty was death. 
 One saw the bush burning, but not 
 consumed, and put the shoes from 
 off his feet. One was freely given 
 life and health, at touch of Jordan's 
 stream, and he sought to enrich the 
 prophet with rarest gifts. In pres- 
 ence of the state, good friends, we 
 do well to fear with holy fear, and 
 to pay obeisance with reverent, ad- 
 miring care. In view of what the 
 state, by its agencies of government 
 and law, has done, and is now doing, 
 for us and ours, it is fitting that we 
 should lay on her altar our most 
 grateful bestowals. 
 
 Freely we may reject the specious 
 but unscientific notion, compound of 
 
 39 
 
THE STATE 
 
 loose thinking and mystical conceit, 
 which makes the state a veritable or- 
 ganism, and clothes it with the attri- 
 butes of conscious, moral, self-deter- 
 mined personality. Yet, of a surety, 
 that which protects our lives, secures 
 our peace, and defends our rights ; 
 that which fosters the family, makes 
 a man's home his castle, offers to 
 every child an education, and admits 
 the qualified voter to a share in polit- 
 ical control ; that which, in the words 
 of Burke, is "a partnership in all 
 science, all art, in every virtue and 
 in all perfection " ; that which affords, 
 even for religion, a prepared field 
 and an unhindered course ; that may 
 rightly be regarded as having 
 
 " an operation more divine 
 
 Than breath or pen can give expressure to." 
 40 
 
DEMANDS PERSONAL WORTH 
 
 In my own thought, I cannot avoid 
 the conclusion that our duty to the 
 state demands that, in ourselves, we 
 be most nobly good and true. When 
 I reflect upon the organic relation 
 which the individual sustains to the 
 state — his type as a part, in perfect 
 accord with the type of the whole ; 
 his significance as a part, betokening 
 the significance of the whole ; his 
 destination as a part, revealing the 
 destination of the whole ; living 
 stones " polished after the similitude 
 of a palace," and built into a living 
 temple ; — it is impressed upon me that 
 the worthy member of the state must 
 be worthy in himself, emulous of all 
 true culture and devoted to every 
 virtue. 
 
 There is a notion abroad that the 
 41 
 
THE STATE 
 
 citizen may measure his regard for 
 the state by the direct material bene- 
 fits which he receives. Out of such 
 a notion has come the popular defini- 
 tion of political gratitude — "a lively 
 sense of favors to come." It is in 
 accord with such a notion, that we 
 see multitudes of men, able in both 
 body and mind, seeking from the gov- 
 ernment an unearned support, and 
 waiting at government dispensaries 
 for their expected dole, as fledgling 
 birds wait for parental care, or the 
 thirsty earth for the early and the 
 latter rain. How pitiful such sordid, 
 invertebrate mendicancy, when con- 
 trasted with the vigor, probity, mag- 
 nanimity, self-respect, self-help, which 
 alone answers to the ideal of either 
 the state or the individual ! How, I 
 42 
 
DEMANDS PERSONAL SERVICE 
 
 ask, save as we build our own char- 
 acters by the rule of honor, "four- 
 square to every wind that blows," 
 shall there be realized Milton's words, 
 "A nation ought to be as but one 
 huge Christian personage, one mighty 
 growth or stature of an honest man, 
 as big and compact in virtue as in 
 body " ? No man personally un- 
 worthy can be patriotic in the highest 
 degree. 
 
 Further, if the citizen's duty to the 
 state demands of him such personal 
 worth, it also demands of him such 
 positive service as comports with the 
 finest manhood, and is a condition of 
 the grandest common weal. I judge 
 that there are not a few who, because 
 they are privately good, excuse them- 
 
 43 
 
THE STATE 
 
 selves for being politically useless. 
 Above their firesides, and on the tab- 
 lets of their hearts, I should like to 
 engrave the words : 
 
 '■ Heaven doth with us as we with torches do. 
 Not light them for themselves. 
 Spirits are not finely touched, 
 But to fine issues . For if our virtues 
 Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike 
 As if we had them not." 
 
 It is, accordingly, with that class of 
 citizens that my contention lies, and 
 it is to them that I wish, through you, 
 to present my plea. No doubt, it is 
 fitting that we should condemn the 
 selfish political manager and the arro- 
 gant political " boss." It is wholly ap- 
 propriate that we should disapprove 
 of bitter partisanship, and the exalting 
 of party success above the public wel- 
 
 44 
 
IMPERILED BY APATHY 
 
 fare. There is even a fierce denun- 
 ciation which such political unworthi- 
 ness richly deserves, and which, to 
 the denouncers themselves, may be a 
 healthful moral gymnastic. But the 
 real gravamen of the case, as either 
 critical or remediable, does not lie in 
 the badness of the wholly bad. It 
 lies in the badness of the otherwise 
 good. I venture that there are few 
 considerable communities in this coun- 
 try, where the generally - well •' inten- 
 tioned do not hold, not only the bal- 
 ance of power, but also the power 
 itself, sheer and in mass. The intelli- 
 gence, the financial strength, the social 
 dominance, are in their hands. Let 
 them rouse themselves for the con- 
 flict. Let them, in simple token that 
 such is the normal way of living, make 
 
 45 
 
THE STATE 
 
 the term of their enlistment "until 
 death." Then, depend upon it, our 
 present political peril will give place 
 to safety, our civic losses will be ex- 
 changed for gain, and our political 
 shame will be blotted out in deserved 
 renown. I assure you, the hope of 
 political betterment, on the part of 
 our adult citizens, is in the generally- 
 well-intentioned, but usually sloth- 
 ful. Next to work with and for the 
 young, there is the inviting field. 
 
 I am not unmindful, Mr. President 
 and Friends, that I have called your 
 attention to the nature and functions 
 of the state in its widest relations, 
 and to the corresponding duties of 
 citizenship in its broadest meaning. 
 46 
 
GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 
 
 This I have done with full intention. 
 I have been wholly confident that 
 you yourselves would make the need- 
 ful application of the truths declared. 
 It is clear, for example, that since the 
 government of town and city neces- 
 sarily partakes of the nature of the 
 government of commonwealth and 
 nation ; and since, in degree, it is 
 necessarily charged with a similar 
 mission ; so the obligations of good 
 citizenship in the lesser spheres, must 
 rest upon essentially the same con- 
 siderations as in the larger spheres. 
 And this clear inference is made the 
 more urgently important, by the fact 
 that, in this country, our political sys- 
 tem suffers its severest strain in our 
 great cities. The city in the common- 
 wealth, is an imperium in imperio, 
 47 
 
THE STATE 
 
 and there is no duty more exigent than 
 to apply, within the city, the principles 
 which are regulative and restorative 
 and righteous. Save the cities, and 
 you safeguard the nation. Let our 
 cities be given over to political de- 
 generacy, and the nation cannot long 
 withstand the downward thrust. 
 
 I own, moreover, that I have had in 
 mind our American inclination to re- 
 vere political declarations, instead of 
 seeking the truth by which all political 
 statements must be tried. In the ex- 
 periences of the Revolution, and the 
 subsequent years of consolidation, as 
 also in the experiences of the Civil War 
 and Reconstruction, we were forced 
 to some realization of those princi- 
 ples which are earlier than Bills of 
 Rights, and which will outlive enacted 
 48 
 
GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 
 
 systems. Yet we still love to believe 
 that sanctity and perfection belong to 
 the instruments and institutions on 
 which our government is built. We 
 are apt to regard the constitution as 
 the creative source, and not merely as 
 one of the means, of our national well- 
 being. Surely it is well that, now and 
 then, we should breathe the upper air, 
 and stand on the serener heights. The 
 healthful effect will be, not only that 
 we shall pay to our written oracles a 
 more intelligent homage, but also that 
 we shall discern the glory of primal 
 truth, and learn the secret of elemental 
 power. I have no word against "gov- 
 ernment by written constitutions." I 
 but exalt those central principles from 
 which political life proceeds, and by 
 which political results are judged. 
 
 49 
 
THE STATE 
 
 But whether in city or country, 
 whether in defence of prescriptive 
 rights or in advocacy of eternal truth, 
 you will, I know, maintain your effort. 
 You cannot do otherwise. Yours is 
 the cause of liberty and law ; of indi- 
 vidual and people ; of civilization and 
 humanity itself. Therefore be of good 
 cheer. To the Patria Club I may 
 say, as Wordsworth wrote of Tous- 
 saint L'Ouverture, 
 
 ' ' Thou hast great allies, 
 Love and man's unconquerable mind." 
 
 I add, in Shakespeare's words : 
 
 " The grace of heaven 
 Before, behind thee, and on every hand, 
 Enwheel thee round." 
 
 SO