its abuses, it should be loved, respected, obeyed, and if need
be, defended at the cost of all earthly goods, and even of life
itself.

The nature or essence of government is to govern. A government
that does not govern, is simply no government at all. If it has
not the ability to govern and governs not, it may be an agency,
an instrument in the bands of individuals for advancing their
private interests, but it is not government. To be government it
must govern both individuals and the community. If it is a mere
machine for making prevail the will of one man, of a certain
number of men, or even of the community, it may be very effective
sometimes for good, sometimes for evil, oftenest for evil, but
government in the proper sense of the word it is not. To govern
is to direct, control, restrain, as the pilot controls and
directs his ship. It necessarily implies two terms, governor and
governed, and a real distinction between them. The denial of all
real distinction between governor and governed is an error in
politics analogous to that in philosophy or theology of denying
all real distinction between creator and creature, God and the
universe, which all the world knows is either pantheism or pure
atheism--the supreme sophism. If we make governor and governed
one and the same, we efface both terms; for there is no governor
nor governed, if the will that governs is identically the will
that is governed. To make the controller and the controlled the
same is precisely to deny all control. There must, then, if
there is government at all, be a power, force, or will that
governs, distinct from that which is governed. In those
governments in which it is held that the people govern, the
people governing do and must act in a diverse relation from the