Quote

It is unfortunately none too well understood that, just as the State has no money of its own, so it has no power of its own.

There are lots of nations in the world or national peoples who don't yet have states. They're inside someone else's state and they want a state of their own.

The idea of the state is, or should be, a very limited, prescribed idea. The state looks after the defense of the realm, and other matters - raising revenue to pay for things which are for all of us, and so on. That idea has turned turtle now. The state isn't any longer perceived as an institution which exists to serve us.

They wish for a general government of unity, as they see that the local legislatures must naturally and necessarily tend to retard the general government.

States are like people. They do not question the awful status quo until some dramatic event overturns the conventional and lax way of thinking.

People don't want charities to usurp the state as the core provider of social services.

We have become bound by a political straitjacket that frames every debate: Too much federal government. Yet our forefathers forged this system for us. The federal government can accomplish what the states, acting alone or even in concert, cannot.