The great use of government is as a restraint; and there is no restraint
which it ought to put upon others, and upon itself too, rather than that
which is imposed on the fury of speculating under circumstances of
irritation. The number of idle tales spread about by the industry of
faction and by the zeal of foolish good-intention, and greedily devoured
by the malignant credulity of mankind, tends infinitely to aggravate
prejudices which in themselves are more than sufficiently strong. In
that state of affairs, and of the public with relation to them, the
first thing that government owes to us, the people, is _information_;
the next is timely coercion: the one to guide our judgment; the other to
regulate our tempers.
To provide for us in our necessities is not in the power of government.
It would be a vain presumption in statesmen to think they can do it.
The people maintain them, and not they the people. It is in the power of
government to prevent much evil; it can do very little positive good in
this, or perhaps in anything else. It is not only so of the state and
statesman, but of all the classes and descriptions of the rich: they are
the pensioners of the poor, and are maintained by their superfluity.
They are under an absolute, hereditary, and indefeasible dependence on
those who labor and are miscalled the poor.
The laboring people are only poor because they are numerous. Numbers in
their nature imply poverty.
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