Liberty or Soft Despotism

[Valin]

Letters From An Ohio Farmer: 5/22/12

 

To My Fellow Citizens:

 

In an earlier letter, I remarked that Alexander Hamilton's view of a commercial republic has, for the most part, prevailed in the United States. Hamilton believed that such a commercial republic was the best means of protecting the natural rights of its citizens to their lives, liberty, and property, which constitute the very basis of prosperity.

 

(Snip)

 

* Such a system has a place for government action but one that is limited in scope. "The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but cannot do, at all, or cannot, so well do, for themselves — in their separate, and individual capacities," e.g., national defense and the maintenance of good domestic order (the military and police functions); the administration of justice, including protection of property rights and enforcement of contracts (the court system); and limited investment in and maintenance of "public goods." Such a government leaves to individuals "the sacred right to regulate their own family affairs" and to "communities ... [the right to] arrange their own internal matters to suit themselves" without undue government interference. "The proposition that each man should do precisely as he pleases with all which is exclusively his own" was for Lincoln the very foundation of justice.

 

(Snip)

 

The United States stands at a crossroads. Will we choose the path to prosperity represented by the commercial republic based on a just, generous, and prosperous system of free labor? Or will we succumb to Tocqueville's "soft despotism" and the servility it entails?

 

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doXDlvBXRLA

 

 

 

* Emphasis Mine