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TEXAS STATE LIBRARY
No. 104. ON CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT AND GUAR- ANTEES. LAMAR 11 [Columbus? Georgia, about 1830] The grent desideratum in f!OVernment has been the want of some principle by which the rights of the weak might be made safe against the strong.- This principle, as we supposed, was discovered in the formation of our go,·ernment. The world hns been ruled by force- not by right.- The rights of the minority had to yield to the will of the majority; in other words the weak had to succumb to the strong. ln the brute creation this is evidently the natural law; and the only one known; for not being able to reason upon the right & [mutilnted] the strong took what they wanted and the weak had no redress. Studying the natural laws among rationaJ creatures, it was inferred that it was also• the natural law of intelligent and reasonable beings; and all governments, were accordingly founded upon it. The weak had no protection against the strong, and had to content them- selves with such rights and privileges as the strong deemed best to conced to them. Hence the weak sowed and the strong reaped; leav- ing to the weak a scanty subsistence merely.- In all disputes about right, justice, interest, physical force was the sole arbiter.- The in- justice of such a system was manifest; but human ingenuity appears not to have been able to discuss any govermt by which t.he evil might be avoided and the rights of the weaker made secure. The framers of the .\mc>rh·an (:orermt flatter themselves that they found the remedy in a written Constitution. They drew up articles of agreement which was to be the supreme and inviolate law, by which all had to be ruled. The rights of the weak were placed upon a footing with the strong; and the government expressly forbid to trespass upon them. The powers of the government being limited and defined, and being re- quired those who might be intrusted with its administration to take a rnlemn oath that they would stick to the compact, it was generally believed that the weak would thus become as secure in their rights as the strong; and that the great disideratum in govermt had been dis- cowred, of making reason and justice the basis instead of force, of all law.- And . . . [mutilated] would have been the great moral & triumph of our govermt, if humane faith and public honor had had any practiral efficacy; but the great radical [?l f mutilated] still existed, of restraining the repacity [of the] stronj!, if they should be dispo~ecl to [dis] card the authority of conscience nnd the co [nstil tu- tion. Suppo~e the go,·ernment as a matter of course always in the hamls of the strong, should transcend its its [sic l limits-suppose those plnced in authority should disregard their oaths t9 adhere to the compact by whic·h the rights of the weak were never. to be im·aded, what protection would the Wf'ak then have? The strong interpretin~ the compact to suit their own cupidity; the weak remonstrates, but where is their prott>ct ion? They li:n·e none except in their arms; and to these they cannot appeal becau:c:e as long as they have strength sufficient to justif.,, such n.ppcal their rights will he respected & not infringed. Here it appears evident that our bonsted govermt of ljro-
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uNos. 100, 102. and 103 hn\'e apparently been lost i;ince the calendar of the Lamar Pap,m; wa!- mnde.
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