Lincoln’s belief that “joint
effort” or “combined action” by government was required to help the weakest
members of society. Five years later he
would admit that “government is not charged with the duty of redressing or
preventing all the wrongs in the world,” but he added: “Government rightfully
may, and…ought to, redress all wrongs which are wrongs to the nation itself.”
The legitimate object of government, is to do for a
community of people, whatever they need to have done, but cannot do, at all,
or cannot, so well do, for themselves— in their separate, and individual
capacities.
In all that the people can individually do as well for
themselves. Government ought not to interfere.
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The desirable things which the individuals of a people
cannot do, or cannot well do, for themselves, fall into two classes: those
which have relations to wrongs, and those which have not. Each of these branch off into an infinite
variety of subdivisions.
The first—that in relation to wrongs—embraces all crimes,
misdemeanors, and non-performance of contracts. The other embraces all which, in its nature, and without wrong,
requires combined action, as public roads and highways, public schools,
charities, pauperism, orphanage, estates of the deceased, and the machinery of government itself.
From this it appears that if all
men were just, there still would be some, though not so much, need of
government.
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Government is a combination of the people of a country to
effect certain objects by joint effort.
The best framed and best administered governments are necessarily
expensive; while by errors in frame and maladministration most of them are more
onerous than they need be, and some of them very oppressive. Why, then, should we have government? Why not each individual take to himself the
whole fruit of his labor, without having any of it taxed away, in services,
corn, or money? Why not take just so
much land as he can cultivate with his own hands, without buying it of any one?
The legitimate object of government is “to do for the people
what needs to be done, but which they cannot, by individual effort, do at all,
or do so well, for themselves. “ There
are many such things—some of them exist independently of the injustice in the
world. Making and maintaining roads, bridges,
and the like; providing for the helpless young and afflicted; common schools;
and discomposing of deceased men’s property, are instances.
But a far larger class of objects springs from the injustice
of men. If one people will make war
upon another, it is necessary with that other to unite and cooperate for
defense. Hence the military
department. If some men will kill, or
beat, or constrain others, or despoil them of property, by force, fraud, or
noncompliance with contracts, it is a common object with peaceful and just men
to prevent it. Hence the criminal and
civil departments.
Source:
To Do for the People What Needs to Be Done, Fragments on Government
[July 1, 1854] in Lincoln on Democracy: His Own Words, with Essays by America's Foremost Civil War Historians. (New
York, NY: A Cornelia & Michael Bessie Book, HarperCollins
Publishers, 1990). Eds. Mario M. Cuomo, & Harold Holzer, pp. 63-65. 
