[72]. It became at once evident that a government whose chief function was to see that individual rights, property rights, state rights, were not invaded, was hardly adequate to unite our colonies with all their separatist instincts, or to meet the needs of a rapidly developing continent. Our national government at once adopted a constructive policy. Guided by Hamilton it assumed constructive powers authority for which could be found in the constitution only by a most liberal construction of its terms. When Jefferson, an antinationalist, acquired Louisiana in 1803, it seemed plain that no such restricted national government as was at first conceived could possibly work.
[73]. These English writers to whom our debt is so large are not responsible for this, but their misinterpreters.
[74]. With the executive and legislative limited in their powers, the decisions of the courts gradually came, especially as they developed constructive powers, to be a body of law which guided the American people.
[75]. For ways of doing this see [Part III].
[76]. We used to think frequent elections democratic. Now we know that they mean simply an increase of party influence and a decrease of official responsibility.
[77]. See [ch. XXX], “Political Pluralism and Functionalism.”
[78]. Laissez-faire was popular when there were great numbers of individual producers. When the large-scale business system made wage-earners of these, there was the beginning of the break-down of laissez-faire.
[79]. Besides the more obvious one of “universal suffrage.”
[80]. This movement to form societies based on our occupations is of course, although usually unconscious, part of the whole syndicalist movement, and as such has real advantages which will be taken up later.
[81]. Since April, 1917, with the rapidly extending use of the schoolhouse as a centre for war services, these numbers have probably greatly increased.