All the gravitations of human nature were constantly tending to topple it over, and it could be maintained upright, or rather upwrong (if you will pardon the feeble witticism), by an elaborate system of constantly renewed props and buttresses and guy-ropes in the form of laws.

A central Congress and forty state legislatures, turning out some twenty thousand laws a year, could not make new props fast enough to take the place of those which were constantly breaking down or becoming ineffectual through some shifting of the strain.

Now society rests on its base, and is in as little need of artificial supports as the everlasting hills." "But you have at least municipal governments besides the one central authority ?" "Certainly, and they have important and extensive functions in looking out for the public comfort and recreation, and the improvement and embellishment of the villages and cities." "But having no control over the labor of their people, or means of hiring it, how can they do anything ?" "Every town or city is conceded the right to retain, for its own public works, a certain proportion of the quota of labor its citizens contribute to the nation.

This proportion, being assigned it as so much credit, can be applied in any way desired.".