The Office of the People (1835) George Bancroft (1800-1891) The Office of the People (1835)

The Office of the People (1835) George Bancroft The Office of the People (1835) Truth is one. It never contradicts itself: One truth cannot contradict another truth. Hence truth is a bond of union. But error not only contradicts truth, but may contradict itself; so that there may be many errors, and each at variance with the rest. Truth is therefore of necessity an element of harmony; error as necessarily an element of discord. Thus there can be no continuing universal judgment but a right one. Men cannot agree in an absurdity; neither can they agree in a falsehood. “For who are the best judges in matters of taste? Do you think the cultivated individual? Undoubtedly not; but the collective mind. The public is wiser than the wisest critic.” A government of equal rights must…rest upon the mind; not wealth, not brute force, the sum of the moral intelligence of the community should rule the State. “The duty of America is to secure the culture and the happiness of the masses by their reliance on themselves.” “The government by the people is in very truth the strongest government in the world. Discarding the implements of terror, it dares to rule by moral force, and has its citadel in the heart.” “…the measure of the progress of civilization is the progress of the people.”