United States -- History -- Constitutional period, 1789-1809 -- Fiction
Freedom! Happiness! What is freedom? What is happiness? Freedom is the
maximum of self-government finally becoming automatic, and the minimum
of government from without finally reduced to the vanishing-point.
Happiness is the ultimate bourne, the Olympian goal, the intense and
burning star towards which we travel. Does not its light even now fall
upon us? even now we are palely happy. And how shall we know the road?
and what if, in the night-time, we turn irremediably aside? How are they
to be attained, true Liberty and true Happiness? Learn! Light the lamp,
and the shadows will flee.--Self-government. Teach thyself temperance,
foresight, and wise memory of the past. Thou thyself, in thine own body,
art a community. See, then, that thy communal life is clean, that thy
will is in right operation, and thy minds divide thee not to disaster.
Thy very ego, is it not but thy president, the voice of all thy members,
representative of all that thy race has made thee to be, effect of ten
million causes, and cause of effects thou canst not see? Let thy ego
strengthen itself, deal justly, rule wisely, that thy state fall not
behind in this world-progress and be lost out of time and out of mind,
in a night without a dawn. There have been such things: over against
immortal gain there lies immortal loss. Work, then, while it is day, for
if thou work not, the night will make no tarrying. Know thyself, and,
knowing, rule that strange world of thine. Were it not a doom, were it
not a frightful doom, that it should come to rule thee? ... Government
from without! Government of to-day, Government abroad as we see it in
every journal, in every letter that we open--how heavy, how heavy is the
ball and chain the nations wear! If we alone in this land go free, if
for four golden years we have moved with lightness, look to it lest a
gaoler come! Government! What is the ideal government? It is a man of
business, worthy and esteemed, administering his client's affairs with
thoroughness, economy, and honour. It is a wise judge, holding the
balances with a steadfast hand, sitting there clothed reverently, to
judge uprightly and to do no more. It is a skilled council, a picked
band, an honourable Legion, chosen of the multitude, to determine the
line of march for an advancing civilization; to make such laws as are
according to reason and necessity and to make none that are not, and to
provide for the keeping of the law that is made. The careful man of
affairs, the upright judge, the honest maker of honest laws must needs
present an account for maintenance and for that expenditure which shall
give offence neither to generosity nor to justice; and the account must
be paid, yea, and ungrudgingly! Let us pay, then, each man according to
his ability, the tax that is right and fitting; and let us, moreover,
give due honour to the vanguard of the people. It is there that the
great flag waves with all the blazonry of the race. But we want no
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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