Sir, you would have no occasion to take all this tremendous labor and responsibility upon yourself, if you and your lawmakers would but keep your hands off the "rights" of your "countrymen." Your "countrymen" would be perfectly competent to take care of their own "interests," and provide for their own "welfare," if their hands were not tied, and their powers crippled, by such fetters as men like you and your lawmakers have fastened upon them.
Do you know so little of your "countrymen," that you need to be told that their own strength and skill must be their sole reliance for their own well-being? Or that they are abundantly able, and willing, and anxious above all other things, to supply their own "needs in their home life," and secure their own "welfare"? Or that they would do it, not only without jar or friction, but as their highest duty and pleasure, if their powers were not manacled by the absurd and villainous laws you propose to execute upon them? Are you so stupid as to imagine that putting chains on men's hands, and fetters on their feet, and insurmountable obstacles in their paths, is the way to supply their "needs," and promote their "welfare"? Do you think your "countrymen" need to be told, either by yourself, or by any such gang of ignorant or unprincipled men as all lawmakers are, what to do, and what not to do, to supply their own "needs in their home life"? Do they not know how to grow their own food, make their own clothing, build their own houses, print their own books, acquire all the knowledge, and create all the wealth, they desire, without being domineered over, and thwarted in all their efforts, by any set of either fools or villains, who may call themselves their lawmakers? And do you think they will never get their eyes open to see what blockheads, or impostors, you and your lawmakers are? Do they not now—at least so far as you will permit them to do it—grow their own food, build their own houses, make their own clothing, print their own books? Do they not make all the scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions, by which all wealth is created? Or are all these things done by "the government"? Are you an idiot, that you can talk as you do, about what you and your lawmakers are doing to provide for the real wants, and promote the real "welfare," of fifty millions of people?
Section XI.
But perhaps the most brilliant idea in your whole address, is this:
Every citizen owes the country a vigilant watch and close scrutiny of its public servants, and a fair and reasonable estimate of their fidelity and usefulness. Thus is the people's will impressed upon the whole framework of our civil policy, municipal, State, and federal; and this is the price of our liberty, and the inspiration of our faith in the republic.
The essential parts of this declaration are these:
"Every citizen owes the country a vigilant watch and close scrutiny of its public servants, ... and this is the price of our liberty."
Who are these "public servants," that need all this watching? Evidently they are the lawmakers, and the lawmakers only. They are not only the chief "public servants," but they are absolute masters of all the other "public servants." These other "public servants," judicial and executive,—the courts, the army, the navy, the collectors of taxes, etc., etc.,—have no function whatever, except that of simple obedience to the lawmakers. They are appointed, paid, and have their duties prescribed to them, by the lawmakers; and are made responsible only to the lawmakers. They are mere puppets in the hands of the lawmakers. Clearly, then, the lawmakers are the only ones we have any occasion to watch.
Your declaration, therefore, amounts, practically, to this, and this only:
Every citizen owes the country a vigilant watch and close scrutiny of ITS LAWMAKERS, ... and this is the price of our liberty.