OBJECTS OF GOVERNMENT. Broadly speaking, the objects of political government are well ex pressed in the preamble to the Constitution of the United States, to "establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." That these the principal objects for which governments exist, and that they are all within the sphere of proper governmental action,. are propositions which no one denies. It is in the definition of these general objects that differences of opinion appear. A recent writer of authority has divided the functions of govern ment into two groups: the constituent functions, or such as are fundamental and necessary in every organized political society, and the minis trant functions, which are undertaken, not of strict necessity, but in order to minister to the general welfare. The former include the defense of the State against foreign aggression. the pres ervation of the peace, the administration of justice, the definition and punishment of crime. the regulation of the domestic relations and of property rights, and the determination of the political rights and duties of citizens, and the status of aliens—all of them purely public func tions which could not be left to be determined by chance or committed to the citizens individ ually. The ministrant functions. on the other hand, are such as might conceivably be left un performed or left to private initiative, as the coinage of money. the regulation of trade, the maintenance of highways and of postal and telegraph systems, sanitary regulation, public education, the care of the poor and incapable, and the like. it is in determining the extent
to which government should go into this broad field of service to society that political philoso phers and statesmen are at odds. The laissez faire school, represented by John Stuart :Mill and Herbert Spencer. would confine the functions of government as closely as possible to those of the constituent class: while, at the other extreme, there are many thinkers of advanced socialistic views who favor a great extension of ministrant activity on the part of the government.. Though the last quarter century has witnessed a decided reaction from the principles of the laissez-faire philosophy, it has as vet produced no consider able effects in England or in the United States. On the Continent of Europe. however, and still more in the British colony of New Zealand. the field of governmental action has of late been greatly widened. That these enlarged views of the functions of government have not made greater progress in the two most democratic States in existence—England and the United States—appears to be due to the large part which the conceptions of individual liberty and private rights play in their political thinking, and to their consequent jealousy of any extension of State action. See POLITICAL SCIENCE; So CIALISM.
For the methods of governmental action, see