12 



doing, prevent another from the exercise of the same free- 

 dom ? 



Without any doubt, the g-overnment under which we have 

 lived, local and national, has come nearer to the model of 

 the best government than any other, for the reason that it 

 has claimed for itself less power than any other, and has, 

 substantially, limited itself to its two legitimate purposes. 

 Till the establishment of limited governments, restricted by 

 written constitutions, there was always implied in the gov- 

 erning power omnipotence in reference to the subjects of it. 

 To-day, though practically false, the Parliament of Great 

 Britain, by her statesmen and jurists, is spoken of as omni- 

 potent, and in theory it is so ; because it is based upon the 

 long -tolerated dogma that in the Providence of God there 

 are two classes — a class to govern and a class to be under 

 subjection to government. If it were within the limits of 

 this discourse it would be interesting and instructive to re- 

 view in detail the principles upon which government is 

 founded and justified, with its limitations and restrictions, as 

 they are carefully and concisely enunciated in that immortal 

 prefix to the Constitution of Massachusetts, popularly called 

 the Bill of Kights. This bill of rights, which in many re- 

 spects is a mere transcript of Magna Charta, had, an hundred 

 years ago, a meaning understood by every body. To-day, 

 these are comparatively free who appreciate it, and because 

 of the reason before referred to, that it has performed its part 

 in the accomplishment of its work, so successfully, and so 

 noiselessly, that we had become unconscious of the presence 

 of a power, which was operating with such potency and be- 

 neficence. The people of Massachusetts long ago outgrew 

 the fiction, that there was a governed and a governing power. 

 Always, from the very first, they had good government, the 

 evils of which were almost wholly theoretic. During their 

 colonial existence, there were at work causes, of which they 

 themselves were seemingly unconscious, which must destroy 

 the whole theoretic structure of government. Without ap- 



