CHAPTER X.

DUTIES OF THE STATE IN GENERAL.

992. WE have stated (473) that the State is a moral Agent: it has Duties: as Duties of Justice, Truth, Humanity, and the like. It has also a more general Duty; the Duty of the Moral Education of its citizens. We must now consider further these Duties, and the means of performing them.

Some persons may be disposed to say, that the only Duties of the State are the Duty of protecting the Persons, the Property, and the other material interests of its citizens. And it is true, that all these Duties are Duties in a more vigorous sense than the Duties of Humanity, and the like; they are Obligations of the State, and are included in the Obligation of upholding the Laws (850). But the practice of States, in all tranquil and cultured times, has pointed out other Duties of another kind, as belonging to them. If the protection of Person and Property be the stricter, they are also the lower Duties of States: and States in general have recognized higher Duties, in addition to these. They have recognized the Duty of paying their debts, a Duty of Justice: they have recognized the Duty of keeping their Treaties, a Duty of Truth: they have recognized the Duty of preventing Cruelty and Oppression, as in the prohibition of the Slave-trade, a Duty of Humanity: they have recognized the Duty of prohibiting obscene and indecent acts and publications, a Duty of Purity: they have recognized the Duty of assisting and rewarding the progress of science and literature, as for instance, by means of Universities, Observatories, Voyages, and the like, a Duty of Intellectual Culture: finally, they have very generally recognized the Duty of morally Educating the young, of punish

ing and suppressing immoral books, and of uniting the citizens in general by the ties which common moral instruction produces; and this is a Duty of Moral Culture. I purposely abstain now from speaking of Religious Culture.

993. If any one were to assert the protection of Person and Property to be the sole duties of States, we should ask, whether he asserts the States to have done wrong, which have recognized the Duties above enumerated. Perhaps some would answer that some of the above Duties, as paying National Debts and keeping National Treaties, are necessary to a good understanding with other Nations, and therefore, necessary to the Duty of national Selfdefence, which is a duty of the State in the strictest sense. To this we must reply, that to pay debts and observe contracts, without any love for Justice and Truth, and merely for the purpose of being trusted, is to have a lower standard of Morality than can satisfy most men, even when applied to the State. But we add, that the answer does not apply at all to the instance of Duties of Humanity performed by States, as in the prohibition of the Slave-trade; nor to the other Duties mentioned. If the only Duties of the States are the protection of the Persons and Property of the Citizens; then the suppression of cruelty towards defenceless foreigners, the suppression of profligacy and mere vice at home, the encouragement of art, science, and literature, in all their higher forms, the education of children, and of all, except so far as teaching them the Law, must be proceedings with which the State has nothing to do; and those States which have employed themselves in aiming at such objects by Laws, or by the expenditure of the national wealth, have been altogether in error.

994. The necessity of the State undertaking such duties, in addition to the Obligations of pro

tecting person and property, may be further illustrated. If we suppose a State which undertakes to protect the persons and property of its members, but disclaims all higher Duties of Humanity, Purity, and the like; the members, when they have attained to a moderate degree of moral culture, will not be satisfied with the range of action of the State; and will not acquiesce in the State, as the highest representative of their common action. They will form themselves into Associations for purposes of Justice, Humanity, and other similar objects. These Associations may become so numerous and united, as to elect the magistrates, control the national acts, change the laws, or defeat their execution, and the like; and thus, may be something exercising higher powers than the State, and reducing that which is formally the State, to a mere mode of action of these Associations. Moreover it is probable that Associations thus bound together voluntarily by a sympathy in Justice and Humanity, will become so powerful as to control or direct the acts of the State, if their Standard of Morality is much higher than that by which the State acts; and if they, consequently, look upon the formal course of action of the State with no approval or sympathy. For instance, the State may give its members property in slaves; but if the general body of individuals have arrived at a point of Moral Culture in which they look upon Slavery as unjust and inhuman; when a man seeks to obtain possession of a slave by course of law, witnesses, judge, and jury (or some of these), will probably act so as to evade, or even to contradict the law; or the law will soon be altered. Perhaps even the Association may be powerful enough to compel the nation to interfere in behalf of slaves of other countries; and thus, in such a case, the voluntary Association, and not the Body which is formally the State, acts as the Nation. And in the

same manner, if the State do not attempt to give to the young a moral education, there may be Associations which undertake to do this; and such Associations, as part of their teaching, may inculcate the injustice or inhumanity of the existing laws. Thus, so far as their teaching is effective, these Associations may produce fundamental changes in the laws, and may direct the National Action in some of the most important points. But further: Moral Education must necessarily depend upon Religion, and will always take the form of Religious Education. Men cannot think much of their Duties, and their Destination, without being led to think of, and to adopt Religion. Religion binds them into Associations, in which they have common convictions, and common privileges, which they earnestly wish to transmit to their children, and to others whom they love. If Classes and Bodies, charged with such objects, be not involved in the composition of the State itself, Societies will be formed, as an addition to the State; and these will exercise such power, that the State will be subordinate to them, or will be destroyed by them. In the history of States we have many instances of a Religion, independent of the State, displacing the Religion previously adopted by the State; though the latter has exerted the formal powers of the State in its defence. In several such cases, the struggle between the old and the new Religion has been long and obstinate. But then, the main strength of the defence of the old Religion lay in its being a Religion, satisfying in some degree men's religious needs, and binding them to its cause by religious ties. If the struggle were between a new Religion and no Religion in the State, the success of the Religious Association in obtaining its ascendancy over the State would be, we cannot but suppose, much more rapid. It may, indeed, happen, that in consequence of the existence of several rival

Religious Associations in the State, no one of them obtains a complete Ascendancy over it. In this case, the power, which the Religious Associations in every State possess, is not extinguished, but divided and balanced. But even in this case, Statesmen will find it necessary to recognize, on the part of the State, those Duties, which all the kinds of Religion agree in enjoining. And thus, the State cannot omit to recognize its higher Duties, without putting in the hands of those who do recognize such Duties, the means of combining men into Associations more powerful than the State; the means of converting the State organization into their instrument; the means of acting for the Nation in spite of the State.

995. The necessity of a State recognizing its higher Duties, and especially the Duty of imparting or confirming the religious instruction of its members, appears also by considering the Right of imposing Oaths, which, as we have said, is exercised by all States (841). By the imposition of Oaths, the citizen's Obligations are identified with his religious Duties; and the State relies upon this identity, as necessary to give it a real hold upon men, and to make them do its business in a sincere, serious, and solemn spirit. If the State cannot obtain this result, it will necessarily tend to dissolution. But religious Duties can have no force for men who have no Religion. The State therefore, in order to provide for its own preservation, must maintain the Religion of the citizens in such modes as it can; for instance, by the religious education of the young, and by arrangements for keeping up the religious convictions and religious sympathies of all. If the State do not, by such means, or by some means, keep alive the religious convictions to which it appeals in the Oaths which it imposes, the Oaths will be rejected, or regarded as unmeaning. In such a Case, men, thinking lightly of Oaths, will think