A Matter of Degree
(which are likewise under constitutional limitations) and the cities (which operate under charters from their states) have emulated the federal authority. Increases in their population were followed with correspondingly increased productivity and the appearance of abundances, which invited political raids on the market place. The proceeds of such forays, always adorned with a social purpose, enhanced political power. And social power diminished. This is a truism culled from the ages, that social power and political power are always in conflict, that the poverty of the one is the opulence of the other, that one thrives on predation, the other on production. The relationship is like that of the scales of a balance, which no parliamentary device can alter.
It follows that political authority is not containable by contract. No constitutional constriction ever invented has succeeded in keeping the political person within his appointed sphere, that of maintaining the peace within Society, of effecting equity between producers, of assuring each member that his rights shall not be invaded by another. Some other instrument of control is necessary if Society is not to be periodically swallowed up by the State. 144
