On Liberty By: John Winthrop

The covenant between you and us is the oath you have taken us, which is to this purpose: that we shall govern you and judge your causes by the rules of God’s laws and our own according to our best skill. When you agree with a workman to build you a ship or house, etc., he undertakes as well for his skill as for his faithfulness, for it is his profession, and you pay him for both. But when you call one to be a magistrate, he doth not profess nor undertake to have sufficient skill for that office, nor can you furnish him with gifts, etc., therefore you must run the hazard of his skill and ability. But if he fails in faithfulness, which by his oath he is bound unto, that he must answer for. If it fall out that the case be clear to common apprehension, and the rule clear also, if he transgress here, the error is not in the skill, but in the evil of the will: it must be required of him. But if the case be doubtful, or the rule doubtful, to men of such understanding and parts as you magistrates are, of your magistrates should err here, yourselves must bear it.

The author John Winthrop is explaining to the people that he was chosen to be the governor by them, that he is to govern the city with the principles of god and his own opinions as well. With a sense of authority that he still may have felt he had, he explained to them that they took a chance with him and with an example of a workman building something he being hired because the person already expects his job to be done well based on his skill that it’s his profession. The workman is being paid based on such, but on the other hand he was hired based on faith and that basically the people could have not had any expectations on how he was supposed to perform his job. He could not be bride or paid to do something otherwise than what he wants following the principles of god. And therefore they must attain to the consequences of what he decides. If he was to fail upon gods wishes then he would have to answer because god is the only one that can judge him.

I choose this quote because unfortunately that is just how thing end up being when you choose a politician in to power. One can never expect what the outcome will be and just have to leave it to them to decide. No bribes or money mentioning that now would be illegal can make them change their mind and the outcome will be what they determine to be. If by any means they are to fault society they can’t even answer to society but to other politicians that will make their decisions based on what they want, the consideration of the better well-being of society is not much there if there is any at all. Seems like not much has changed in politics from then till now, the mistakes are still there and the ways of fixing them remain the same as well. I guess for those who vote, can only sit and see what more changes will be done, hoping that the next person in power would do better things than the last.