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Brownson, Orestes Augustus, 1803-1876

"The American Republic : constitution, tendencies and destiny"

He is
born and lives in society, and can be born and live nowhere else.
It is one of the necessities of his nature. "God saw that it was
not good for man to be alone." Hence, wherever man is found he
is found in society, living in more or less strict intercourse
with his kind.
But society never does and never can exist without government of
some sort. As society is a necessity of man's nature, so is
government a necessity of society. The simplest form of society
is the family--Adam and Eve. But though Adam and Eve are in many
respects equal, and have equally important though different parts
assigned them, one or the other must be head and governor, or
they cannot form the society called family. They would be simply
two individuals of different sexes, and the family would fail for
the want of unity.
Children cannot be reared, trained, or educated without some
degree of family government, of some authority to direct,
control, restrain, or prescribe. Hence the authority of the
husband and father is recognized by the common consent of
mankind. Still more apparent is the necessity of government the
moment the family develops and grows into the tribe, and the
tribe into the nation. Hence no nation exists without
government; and we never find a savage tribe, however low or
degraded, that does not assert somewhere in the father, in the
elders, or in the tribe itself, the rude outlines or the faint
reminiscences of some sort of government, with authority to
demand obedience and to punish the refractory.


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