The good it can do.

From CNN's Mark Shields:

WASHINGTON (Creators Syndicate) -- As the summer of 2005 turns into autumn, each new public opinion poll reports even further hemorrhaging of voters' confidence in the federal government and the Bush administration.

Before we slip into a paralysis of despair, now is a good time to celebrate a few of our collective successes that we have achieved through our federal government.

In the timeless wisdom of one of the greatest of all Republican presidents, Theodore Roosevelt, "The government is us; we are the government, you and I."

Consider the summer of 1862. The Civil War, which would take more American lives than all the nation's other wars, raged.

Yet, a Vermont Republican congressman, Justin Smith Morrill, was able to win passage over the all-out opposition of states' rights conservatives of a radical initiative that provided to all states not in rebellion 30,000 acres of federal land for each senator and congressman the state had -- some 17 million acres in all.

With the proceeds from those land sales, a state was to build a public college that would teach engineering and agriculture, along with the liberal arts and military training. The great universities of Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota and California were among the 70 land-grant schools eventually built.

What makes this so remarkable is that Justin Morrill and President Abraham Lincoln and their colleagues, in the middle of the nation's most divisive and bloody war fought entirely on American soil and when 98 percent of the population had not so much as set foot on a college campus, had so much confidence in their country and their countrymen's future.

It turned out to be confidence well-placed. From the dedication and work of individuals at these "government" colleges have come the Salk and Sabin vaccines, streptomycin, the digital computer and the first atom-smasher. U.S. land-grant colleges have produced more Nobel Prize winners than all the universities of Europe.

Our federal government has had more recent successes to celebrate. The distinguished scholar Paul Light surveyed academics and compiled an impressive list of government's greatest endeavors since World War II.

The rebuilding of war-torn Europe through President Harry Truman's Marshall Plan, named for General -- and later Secretary of both State and Defense -- George C. Marshall, saved millions of people from death, starvation, domination and terror. All the tax cuts in the world or private sector ingenuity never could have wrought that miracle. It took the U.S. government.

Just as it was only the federal government that could end racial segregation and officially sanctioned discrimination. That's what we did through the civil rights acts of the 1960s, which guaranteed the right to vote, the right to eat in a restaurant, go to a movie and stay in a hotel, and later, the right to buy a home in any neighborhood.

Another strain of discrimination and segregation was overcome by the 1990 disabilities act.

Through the successful efforts of the federal government -- and bipartisan political leadership -- the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe are all cleaner and safer.

President Jimmy Carter perceptively said: "America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense ... human rights invented America."

The government of the United States has made blunders, but it has also profoundly advanced human rights around the world. We prevailed over communism and have reduced the likelihood of nuclear war.

Hunger has been reduced. As a direct consequence of Social Security and Medicare, the poverty rate among the country's elderly is the lowest in history and the life expectancy is the highest.

The feds are far from infallible. Government can still be imperious. But at a time when our national self-confidence is in dangerously short supply, we would do well to celebrate our common successes we have collectively achieved.

T.R. was right: "The government is us; we are the government, you and I."