The object of government is the protection of person, property, and reputation from the foes which assail them. Government may do other things: it may carry the mails, run the express, own and operate the railroads; but its fundamental function is to furnish protection from open violence or secret fraud. If it adequately protects person, property, and reputation, it is a just government, though it do nothing else; if it fails to protect these primary rights, if the person is left to defend himself, his property, his reputation by his own strong arm, there is no government.