William Penn Frames a Government for
Government seems to me a part of
religion itself, a thing sacred in its institution and end. For, if it directly
does not remove the cause, it crushes the effects of evil, and is as such an
emanation of the same Divine Power that is both author and object of pure
religion; the difference being that one is more free and mental, the other more
corporal and compulsive in its operations. But that is only to evildoers,
government itself being otherwise as capable of kindness, goodness, and charity
as a more private society.
They weakly err
that think there is no other use for government than correction, which is the
coarsest part of it. Daily experience tells us that the care and regulation of
many other affairs, more soft and daily necessary, make up much of the greatest
part of government.
...I know what is said by the
several admirers of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, which are the rule of
one, a few, and many, and are the three common ideas of government. But I
choose to solve the controversy with this small distinction, and it applies to
all three: Any government is free to the people under it (whatever the frame)
where the laws rule, and the people participate in making those laws, and more
than this is tyranny, oligarchy, or confusion.
But lastly, when all is said, there
is hardly one frame of government in the world so ill designed by its founder
that in good hands would not do well enough. Governments, like clocks, go from
the motion men give them; as governments are made and moved by men, so they are
ruined, too. Wherefore, governments rather depend upon men than men upon
governments.