The Union Purpose of Government

It’s not that we have forgotten the purpose of our government; it’s that we probably never learned it. In the second installment on the purpose of government I thought the starting point might logically proceed from our covenant. If my meaning doesn’t spring immediately to mind, perhaps the following snippet from our contract will help: “form a more perfect Union”. Yes, the U.S. Constitution which many consider the seminal document defining our government and perhaps even its purpose.

On the supposition that the preamble serves to set forth the general purposes and goals of our government then an examination of the preamble is a rational point of departure for a discussion. How then is a “more perfect Union” a purpose for our government?

The Union referred to is the collection of states that determined that their individual interests and futures, and the interests of their citizens, would be better served if they redefined the confederated government that they had been working under into one that established the federal system we have today. This is how it was formed but doesn’t explain what its expected purposes are. So let’s begin and see what it is that we have by way of expectation in the purpose for our Constitutional government.

The ‘more perfect’ is the salient semantic component of this constitutional goal. After all, we already had a Union with the Confederation; the problem was that it was not an effective and viable governmental structure. The immediate and local individual states’ interests were trumping the national needs and interests of the Confederation. Even at the start, we had difficulties in reconciling the local, state and regional versus the national views. The ‘more perfect’ sets forth a purpose and vision for our government, our union; that entailed a cohesive force that provides a single national means to deliver upon the contract. While admitting to the impossibility of delivering a ‘perfect’ Union, our Founding Fathers chose to incorporate the aspirational goal to insure that it was better at achieving it other goals.

Beyond that very American ambition, there is still more in the simple word: Union. Whether they understood it or not, the Founding Fathers encompassed a societal purpose to our federal government that it was to extend fundamental equality of rights within the nation. As the nation has matured and endured this notion of equality has broadened and strengthened as an essential principle that is both a guarantee and an obligation. This is one of the purposes of our government. Within the framework of our federal government, we have established the individual and the collective responsibility to recognize the mutual rights we are obligated to respect and grant each other; and which the government is empowered and directed to maintain in the execution of our laws. The governmental purpose imposed by the ‘Union’ context is to hold individuals, groups, states, regions, and the nation itself to abide by the equality of rights and of responsibilities that our laws delineate. This purpose includes the government’s responsibility to insure that no laws are enacted which inherently violates any other guaranteed conditions of our Constitutional compact.

While we instantly demand our rights, we rarely and reluctantly acknowledge the ‘mutual’ responsibilities required of our democratic system. It’s not hard to see how the divisive and antagonistic mentalities of our political parties have contributed to the failure of working toward are ‘more perfect’ Union. The political parties represent what the Founding Fathers had to overcome in creating the form of government Americans were willing to and still die for, the short-term and local interest over the national and societal interest.