133 



the best judges, not of what they like, but, of what 

 is good for them, and this again requires not 

 only a highly cultivated, but a peculiarly constituted 

 society. Thus, if we take twenty highly cultivated, 

 and highly educated men, and 'set them around a 

 board groaning with delicacies, served by a chef 

 of distinguished merit, it will not follow that 

 all, or even a majority of them, will eat and 

 drink only those things which are good for them, 

 or that the proportion of the twenty that will do 

 so, will be the same, if their number be composed 

 of Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, Indians, 

 Chinamen, or any other of the families which com- 

 pose the human race. So is it with the business 

 of life; and it is, consequently, wholly impossible 

 to define, or determine, the proper functions of 

 Governments in the abstract, for it is abundantly 

 clear, that those functions which are obligatory iu 

 one state of society, will be only expedient m 

 another, probably unnecessary in a third, and 

 possibly mischievous in a fourth. 



When, therefore, I asserted above, that Govern- 

 ment intervention was necessary to solve the 

 Indian Cotton question, I had no intention whatever 

 of combating the abstract doctrine, that matters of 

 business or trade are best cared for when left in the 

 hands of those interested in them. Such undoubtedly 

 is the case where people have all the qualifications 

 necessary to render them the best guardians of 



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