Speak!
Growth of Belief in Small Government
The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government.
Patrick Henry
excerpt from Henry David Thoreau’s essay’s “Resistance to Civil Government.â€
I HEARTILY ACCEPT the motto, — “That government is best which governs least”; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe, — “That government is best which governs not at all”; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.
But, to speak practically and as a citizen, …, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.
After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule, is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? — in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right….
Have you made a statement of the type of government that you could believe in?
The Charter Commission is waiting to hear from you.
Do NOT let a handfull of elected persons decide the course of your government. Be vocal. Be heard.
Submit what you believe to be in the best interests of Methuen to the Commission.
In Person, By Mail, By email. stop the members on the street and state your conviction.
We await your comment.