G. Edward Griffin - The Fearful Master - PDF Archive

Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous
servant and a fearful master.
George Washington
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: THE DANGEROUS SERVANT
In 1816 Thomas Jefferson wrote:
The way to have good and safe government is not to trust it all to one,
but to divide it among the many, distributing to everyone exactly the
functions he is competent to handle. Let the national Government be
entrusted with the defense of the nation and its foreign and federal
relations; the state Governments with the civil rights, laws, police and
administration of what concerns the state generally; the counties with
the local concerns of the counties; and each ward direct the interests
within itself. It is by dividing and subdividing these republics, from the
great national one down through all its subordinations . . . that all will be
done for the best. What has destroyed liberty and the rights of man in
every government which has ever existed under the sun? The
generalizing and concentrating all cares and powers into one body, no
matter whether the autocrats of Russia or France or of the aristocrats of
a Venetian senate. 1
Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with government of
himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or
have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history
answer the question. 2
Indeed, history has answered the question; not only the distant history to which Jefferson
is here referring, but more recent events as well. In the two decades that followed the birth
of this nation, men and women by the hundreds of thousands migrated here from all over
the world, because they knew that here was the land of freedom and opportunity, where a
man could make his own deal with life without being bowed by the oppressive yoke of
government directing his daily life. Carl Schurz was one such immigrant, and his words
written in 1853 serve as monumental tribute to the wisdom of such men as Washington
and Jefferson:
Here in America, you can see daily how little a people needs to be
governed. There are governments, but no masters; there are governors,
but they are only commissioners, agents. What there is here of great
institutions of learning, of churches, of great commercial institutions,
lines of communication, etc., almost always owes its existence, not to
official authority, but to the spontaneous cooperation of private citizens.
Here, you witness the productiveness of freedom. . . . We learn here
how superfluous is the action of governments concerning a multitude of
things in which in Europe it is deemed absolutely indispensable; and
how the freedom to do something awakens the desire to do it. 3