" But it would be
ridiculous to say--"The child will feed the mother."
The Americans formed another idea of the relations of the citizens with
the Government when they placed these simple words at the head of their
Constitution:--
"We, the people of the United States, for the purpose of forming a more
perfect union, of establishing justice, of securing interior
tranquillity, of providing for our common defence, of increasing the
general well-being, and of securing the benefits of liberty to ourselves
and to our posterity, decree," &c.
Here there is no chimerical creation, no _abstraction_, from which the
citizens may demand everything. They expect nothing except from
themselves and their own energy.
If I may be permitted to criticise the first words of our Constitution,
I would remark, that what I complain of is something more than a mere
metaphysical subtilty, as might seem at first sight.
I contend that this _personification_ of Government has been, in past
times, and will be hereafter, a fertile source of calamities and
revolutions.
There is the public on one side, Government on the other, considered as
two distinct beings; the latter bound to bestow upon the former, and the
former having the right to claim from the latter, all imaginable human
benefits. What will be the consequence?
In fact, Government is not maimed, and cannot be so.
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