Abraham Lincoln, Fragment on Government, circa July 1, 1854

    Source citation
    Abraham Lincoln, Fragment on Government, circa July 1, 1854, in Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (8 vols., New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), 2: 220-21, http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/.
    Type
    Miscellaneous
    Date Certainty
    Disputed
    Transcriber
    Transcription adapted from The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (1953), edited by Roy P. Basler
    Adapted by Matthew Pinsker, Dickinson College
    Transcription date
    The following text is presented here in complete form, as it originally appeared in print. Spelling and typographical errors have been preserved as in the original.
    [July 1, 1854?]
     
    The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, 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.
     
    The desirable things which the individuals of a people can not do, or can not well do, for themselves, fall into two classes: those which have relation 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.
    How to Cite This Page: "Abraham Lincoln, Fragment on Government, circa July 1, 1854," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/index.php/node/40487.