Here is the guaranty against tyranny, oppression, or bad government, or what in modern times is called the responsibility of power.At the same time the state is guarantied against sedition, insurrection, rebellion, revolution, by the elevation of the civic virtues to the rank of religious, virtues, and making loyalty a matter of conscience.Religion is brought to the aid of the state, not indeed as a foreign auxiliary, but as integral in the political order itself.Religion sustains the state, not because it externally commands us to obey the higher powers, or to be submissive to the powers that be, not because it trains the people to habits of obedience, and teaches them to be resigned and patient under the grossest abuses of power, but because it and the state are in the same order, and inseparable, though distinct, parts of one and the same whole.The church and the state, as corporations or external governing bodies, are indeed separate in their spheres, and the church does not absorb the state, nor does the state the church; but both are from God, and both work to the same end, and when each is rightly understood there is no antithesis or antagonism between them.
Men serve God in serving the state as directly as in serving the church.He who dies on the battle-field fighting for his country ranks with him who dies at the stake for his faith.Civic virtues are themselves religious virtues, or at least virtues without which there are no religious virtues, since no man who loves not his brother does or can love God.
The guaranties offered the state or authority are ample, because it has not only conscience, moral sentiment, interest, habit, and the via inertia of the mass, but the whole physical force of the nation, at its command.The individual has, indeed, only moral guaranties against the abuse of power by the sovereign people, which may no doubt sometimes prove insufficient.But moral guaranties are always better than none, and there are none where the people are held to be sovereign in their own native right and might, organized or unorganized, inside or outside of the constitution, as most modern democratic theorists maintain;since, if so, the will of the people, however expressed, is the criterion of right and wrong, just and unjust, true and false, is infallible and impeccable, and no moral right can ever be pleaded against it; they are accountable to nobody, and, let them do what they please, they can do no wrong.This would place the individual at the mercy of the state, and deprive him of all right to complain, however oppressed or cruelly treated.This would establish the absolute despotism of the state, and deny every thing like the natural rights of man, or individual and personal freedom, as has already been shown.Now as men do take part in government, and as men, either individually or collectively, are neither infallible nor impeccable, it is never to be expected, under any possible constitution or form of government, that authority will always be wisely and justly exercised, that wrong will ever be done, and the rights of individuals never in any instance be infringed; but with the clear understanding that all power is of God, that the political sovereignty is vested in the people or the collective body, that the civil rulers hold from God through them and are responsible to Him through them, and justiciable by them, there is all the guaranty against the abuse of power by the, nation, the political or organic people, that the nature of the case admits.The nation may, indeed, err or do wrong, but in the way supposed you get in the government all the available wisdom and virtue the nation has, and more is never, under any form or constitution of government, practicable or to be expected, It is a maxim with constitutional statesmen, that "the king reigns, not governs." The people, though sovereign under God, are not the government.The government is in their name and by virtue of authority delegated from God through them, but they are not it, are not their own ministers.It is only when the people forget this and undertake to be their own ministers and to manage their own affairs immediately by themselves instead of selecting agents to do it for them, and holding their agents to a strict account for their management, that they are likely to abuse their power or to sanction injustice.The nation may be misled or deceived for a moment by demagogues, those popular courtiers, but as a rule it is disposed to be just and to respect all natural rights.The wrong is done by individuals who assume to speak in their name, to wield their power, and to be themselves the state.
L'etat, c'est moi.I am the state, said Louis XIV.of France, and while that was conceded the French nation could have in its government no more wisdom or virtue than he possessed, or at least no more than he could appreciate.And under his government France was made responsible for many deeds that the nation would never have sanctioned, if it bad been recognized as the depositary of the national sovereignty, or as the French state, and answerable to God for the use it made of political power, or the conduct of its government.
But be this as it may, there evidently can be no physical force in the nation to coerce the nation itself in case it goes wrong, for if the sovereignty vests in the nation, only the nation can rightly command or authorize the employment of force, and all commissions must run in its name.Written constitutions alone will avail little, for they emanate from the people, who can disregard them, if they choose, and alter or revoke them at will.
