Consequently, in the vast field of labor, they
themselves decide on what they will undertake; they themselves, of
their own authority, set their own limits. They may therefore enlarge
their own domain to any extent they please, and reduce indefinitely
the domain of the State. On the contrary, the State cannot pretend to
more than what they leave; as they advance on their common territory
separated by vague frontiers, it is bound to recede and leave the
ground to them; whatever the task is, it should not perform it except
in case of their default, or their prolonged absence, or on proof of
their having abandoned it.
All the rest, therefore falls to the State; first, the offices which
they would never claim, and which they will deliberately leave in its
hands, because they do not have that indispensable instrument, called
armed force. This force forces assures the protection of the
community against foreign communities, the protection of individuals
against one another, the levying of soldiers, the imposition of taxes,
the execution of the laws, the administration of justice and of the
police. - Next to this, come matters of which the accomplishment
concerns everybody without directly interesting any one in particular
- the government of unoccupied territory, the administration of
rivers, coasts, forests and public highways, the task of governing
subject countries, the framing of laws, the coinage of money, the
conferring of a civil status, the negotiating in the name of the
community with local and special corporations, departments, communes,
banks, institutions, churches, and universities.
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