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Our destiny is ideal. We are on our way to the Unseen. The ideal draws us
upward,--_real_ now, to the spirits of just men made perfect--to be real
to us when we are perfect--_once_ ideal to them, as now to us. We must
keep above us the model of life and of law which we have not yet attained.
Let it never be dim. It is a star shining through time's night! A banner
waving from the throne of God. It tells us of the goal. It points out our
futurity--the altitude of our virtue, our exaltation, our bliss.
Our subject is GOVERNMENT AND MAN. We proceed to consider it in a
three-fold aspect, inquiring
I. _What is good government?_
II. _What constitutes rebellion against such government?_
III. _What is the duty of each citizen when rebellion exists?_
I. _What is a good government_?
No citizen looks for an absolutely perfect form of nationality--of law.
But we have a right to ask for good government. We have been accustomed to
think that it depends more on administration than on principle; and the
line of the poet, "That which is best administered, is best," is a
proverb, to the sentiment of which we too freely yield. No doubt a
government with bad statutes and wrong laws, may be so administered as to
produce a tolerable degree of national comfort and development for a
season; while a Constitution perfect in its theories and principles, may
be so maladministered as to corrupt and distract, impoverish and
demoralize, a people.
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