[Sidenote:  “The government.”] The business of carrying on government—­of steering the ship of state—­either requires some special training, or absorbs all the time and attention of those who carry it on; and accordingly, in all countries, certain persons or groups of persons are selected or in some way set apart, for longer or shorter periods of time, to perform the work of government.  Such persons may be a king with his council, as in the England of the twelfth century; or a parliament led by a responsible ministry, as in the England of to-day; or a president and two houses of congress, as in the United States; or a board of selectmen, as in a New England town.  When we speak of “a government” or “the government,” we often mean the group of persons thus set apart for carrying on the work of government.  Thus, by “the Gladstone government” we mean Mr. Gladstone, with his colleagues in the cabinet and his Liberal majority in the House of Commons; and by “the Lincoln government,” properly speaking, was meant President Lincoln, with the Republican majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives.

[Sidenote:  Whatever else it may be, “the government” is the power which taxes] “The government” has always many things to do, and there are many different lights in which we might regard it.  But for the present there is one thing which we need especially to keep in mind.  “The government” is the power which can rightfully take away a part of your property, in the shape of taxes, to be used for public purposes.  A government is not worthy of the name, and cannot long be kept in existence, unless it can raise money by taxation, and use force, if necessary, in collecting its taxes.  The only general government of the United States during the Revolutionary War, and for six years after its close, was the Continental Congress, which had no authority to raise money by taxation.  In order to feed and clothe the army and pay its officers and soldiers, it was obliged to ask for money from the several states, and hardly ever got as much as was needed.  It was obliged to borrow millions of dollars from France and Holland, and to issue promissory notes which soon became worthless.  After the war was over it became clear that this so-called government could neither preserve order nor pay its debts, and accordingly it ceased to be respected either at home or abroad, and it became necessary for the American people to adopt a new form of government.  Between the old Continental Congress and the government under which we have lived since 1789, the differences were many; but by far the most essential difference was that the new government could raise money by taxation, and was thus enabled properly to carry on the work of governing.