The Philosophy of Law: Public Right, Consequences of the Civil Union, C: Relief of the Poor; Foundling Hospitals; the Church
Public Right, Consequences of the Civil Union, C: Relief of the Poor; Foundling Hospitals; the Church
The Sovereign, as undertaker of the duty of the People, has the Right to tax them for purposes essentially connected with their own preservation. Such are, in particular, the Relief of the Poor, Foundling Asylums, and Ecclesiastical Establishments, otherwise designated charitable or pious Foundations.
1. The People have in fact united themselves by their common Will into a Society, which has to be perpetually maintained; and for this purpose they have subjected themselves to the internal Power of the State, in order to preserve the members of this Society even when they are not able to support themselves. By the fundamental principle of the State, the Government is justified and entitled to compel those who are able, to furnish the means necessary to preserve those who are not themselves capable of providing for the most necessary wants of Nature. For the existence of persons with property in the State, implies their submission under it for protection and the provision by the State of what is necessary for their existence; and accordingly the State founds a Right upon an obligation on their part to contribute of their means for the preservation of their fellow-citizens. This may be carried out by taxing the Property or the commercial industry of the Citizens, or by establishing Funds and drawing interest from them, not for the wants of the State as such, which is rich, but for those of the People. And this is not to be done merely by voluntary contributions, but by compulsory exactions as State-burdens, for we are here considering only the Riyht of the State in relation to the People. Among the voluntary modes of raising such contributions Lotteries ought not to be allowed, because they increase the number of those who are poor, and involve danger to the public property.—It may be asked whether the Relief of the Poor ought to be administered out of current contributions, so that every age should maintain its own Poor; or whether this were better done by means of permanent funds and charitable institutions, such as Widows‘Homes, Hospitals, etc. ? And if the former method is the better, it may also be considered whether the means necessary are to be raised by a legal Assess ment rather than by Begging, which is generally nigh akin to robbing. The former method must in reality be regarded as the only one that is conformable to the Right of the State, which cannot withdraw its connection from any one who has to live. For a legal current provision does not make the profession of poverty a means of gain for the indolent, as is to be feared is the case with pious Foundations when they grow with the number of the poor; nor can it be charged with being an unjust or unrighteous burden imposed by the Government on the people.
2. The State has also a Right to impose upon the People the duty of preserving Children exposed from want or shame, and who would otherwise perish; for it cannot knowingly allow this increase of its power to be destroyed, however unwelcome in some respects it may be. But it is a difficult question to determine how this may most justly be carried out. It might be considered whether it would not be right to exact contributions for this purpose from the unmarried persons of both sexes who are possessed of means, as being in part responsible for the evil; and further, whether the end in view would be best carried out by Foundling Hospitals, or in what other way consistent with Right. But this is a problem of which no solution has yet been offered that does not in some measure offend against Right or Morality.
3. The Church is here regarded as an Ecclesiastical Establishment merely, and as such it must be carefully distinguished from Religion, which as an internal mode of feeling lies wholly beyond the sphere of the action of the Civil Power. Viewed as an Institution for public Worship founded for the people,—to whose opinion or conviction it owes its origin,—the Church Establishment responds to a real want in the State. This is the need felt by the people to regard themselves as also Subjects of a Supreme Invisible Power to which they must pay homage, and which may often be brought into a very undesirable collision with the Civil Power. The State has therefore a Right in this relation; but it is not to be regarded as the Right of Constitutional Legislation in the Church, so as to organize it as may seem most advantageous for itself, or to prescribe and command its faith and ritual forms of worship (ritus); for all this must be left entirely to the teachers and rulers which the Church has chosen for itself. The function of the State in this connection, only includes the negative Right of regulating the influence of these public teachers upon the visible political Commonwealth, that it may not be prejudicial to the public peace and tranquillity. Consequently the State has to take measures, on occasion of any internal conflict in the Church, or on occasion of any collision of the several Churches with each other, that Civil concord is not endangered; and this Right falls within the province of the Police. It is beneath the difjnity of the Supreme Power to interpose in determining what particular faith the Church shall profess, or to decree that a certain faith shall be unalterably held, and that the Church may not reform itself. For in doing so, the Supreme Power would be mixing itself up in a scholastic wrangle, on a footing of equality with its subjects; the Monarch would be making himself a priest; and the Churchmen might even reproach the Supreme Power with understanding nothing about matters of faith. Especially would this hold in respect of any prohibition of internal Reform in the Church; for what the People as a whole cannot determine upon for themselves, cannot be determined for the People by the Legislator. But no People can ever rationally determine that they will never advance farther in their insight into matters of faith, or resolve that they will never reform the institutions of the Church; because this would be opposed to the humanity in their own persons, and to their highest Rights.
And therefore the Supreme Power cannot of itself resolve and decree in these matters for the People.—As regards the cost of maintaining the Ecclesiastical Establishment, for similar reasons this must be derived not from the public funds of the State, but from the section of the People who profess the particular faith of the Church; and thus only ought it to fall as a burden on the Community.