No More Learning

Oh, unhappy the writer who
publishes the truth otherwise than as a performance of a duty! If he has
counted upon the applause of the crowd; if he has supposed that avarice
and self-interest would forget themselves in admiration of him; if he
has neglected to encase himself within three thicknesses of brass,--he
will fail, as he ought, in his selfish undertaking. The unjust
criticisms, the sad disappointments, the despair of his mistaken
ambition, will kill him.

But, if I am no longer permitted to express my own personal opinion
concerning this interesting question of social equilibrium, let me, at
least, make known the thought of my masters, and develop the doctrines
advocated in the name of the government.

It never has been my intention, sir, in spite of the vigorous censure
which you, in behalf of your academy, have pronounced upon the doctrine
of equality of fortunes, to contradict and cope with you. In listening
to you, I have felt my inferiority too keenly to permit me to enter upon
such a discussion. And then,--if it must be said,--however different
your language is from mine, we believe in the same principles; you share
all my opinions. I do not mean to insinuate thereby, sir, that you have
(to use the phraseology of the schools) an ESOTERIC and an EXOTERIC
doctrine,--that, secretly believing in equality, you defend property
only from motives of prudence and by command. I am not rash enough to
regard you as my colleague in my revolutionary projects; and I esteem
you too highly, moreover, to suspect you of dissimulation. I only
mean that the truths which methodical investigation and laborious
metaphysical speculation have painfully demonstrated to me, a profound
acquaintance with political economy and a long experience reveal to
you. While I have reached my belief in equality by long reflection, and
almost in spite of my desires, you hold yours, sir, with all the zeal of
faith,--with all the spontaneity of genius. That is why your course
of lectures at the Conservatory is a perpetual war upon property and
inequality of fortunes; that is why your most learned investigations,
your most ingenious analyses, and your innumerable observations always
conclude in a formula of progress and equality; that is why, finally,
you are never more admired and applauded than at those moments of
inspiration when, borne upon the wings of science, you ascend to those
lofty truths which cause plebeian hearts to beat with enthusiasm, and
which chill with horror men whose intentions are evil. How many times,
from the place where I eagerly drank in your eloquent words, have I
inwardly thanked Heaven for exempting you from the judgment passed by
St. Paul upon the philosophers of his time,--"They have known the truth,
and have not made it known"! How many times have I rejoiced at finding
my own justification in each of your discourses! No, no; I neither wish
nor ask for any thing which you do not teach yourself. I appeal to your
numerous audience; let it belie me if, in commenting upon you, I pervert
your meaning.

A disciple of Say, what in your eyes is more anti-social than the
custom-houses; or, as you correctly call them, the barriers erected by
monopoly between nations? What is more annoying, more unjust, or more
absurd, than this prohibitory system which compels us to pay forty
sous in France for that which in England or Belgium would bring us but
fifteen? It is the custom-house, you once said, [45] which arrests
the development of civilization by preventing the specialization of
industries; it is the custom-house which enriches a hundred monopolists
by impoverishing millions of citizens; it is the custom-house which
produces famine in the midst of abundance, which makes labor sterile by
prohibiting exchange, and which stifles production in a mortal embrace.
It is the custom-house which renders nations jealous of, and hostile to,
each other; four-fifths of the wars of all ages were caused originally
by the custom-house. And then, at the highest pitch of your enthusiasm,
you shouted: "Yes, if to put an end to this hateful system, it should
become necessary for me to shed the last drop of my blood, I would
joyfully spring into the gap, asking only time enough to give thanks to
God for having judged me worthy of martyrdom! "


And, at that solemn moment, I said to myself: "Place in every department
of France such a professor as that, and the revolution is avoided. "

But, sir, by this magnificent theory of liberty of commerce you render
military glory impossible,--you leave nothing for diplomacy to do;
you even take away the desire for conquest, while abolishing profit
altogether. What matters it, indeed, who restores Constantinople,
Alexandria, and Saint Jean d'Acre, if the Syrians, Egyptians, and Turks
are free to choose their masters; free to exchange their products with
whom they please? Why should Europe get into such a turmoil over this
petty Sultan and his old Pasha, if it is only a question whether we or
the English shall civilize the Orient,--shall instruct Egypt and Syria
in the European arts, and shall teach them to construct machines, dig
canals, and build railroads? For, if to national independence free trade
is added, the foreign influence of these two countries is thereafter
exerted only through a voluntary relationship of producer to producer,
or apprentice to journeyman.

Alone among European powers, France cheerfully accepted the task of
civilizing the Orient, and began an invasion which was quite apostolic
in its character,--so joyful and high-minded do noble thoughts render
our nation! But diplomatic rivalry, national selfishness, English
avarice, and Russian ambition stood in her way. To consummate a
long-meditated usurpation, it was necessary to crush a too generous
ally: the robbers of the Holy Alliance formed a league against dauntless
and blameless France. Consequently, at the news of this famous treaty,
there arose among us a chorus of curses upon the principle of property,
which at that time was acting under the hypocritical formulas of the old
political system. The last hour of property seemed to have struck by
the side of Syria; from the Alps to the ocean, from the Rhine to the
Pyrenees, the popular conscience was aroused. All France sang songs
of war, and the coalition turned pale at the sound of these shuddering
cries: "War upon the autocrat, who wishes to be proprietor of the
old world! War upon the English perjurer, the devourer of India, the
poisoner of China, the tyrant of Ireland, and the eternal enemy of
France! War upon the allies who have conspired against liberty and
equality! War! war! war upon property! "

By the counsel of Providence the emancipation of the nations is
postponed. France is to conquer, not by arms, but by example. Universal
reason does not yet understand this grand equation, which, commencing
with the abolition of slavery, and advancing over the ruins of
aristocracies and thrones, must end in equality of rights and fortunes;
but the day is not far off when the knowledge of this truth will be as
common as that of equality of origin. Already it seems to be understood
that the Oriental question is only a question of custom-houses. Is it,
then, so difficult for public opinion to generalize this idea, and to
comprehend, finally, that if the suppression of custom-houses involves
the abolition of national property, it involves also, as a consequence,
the abolition of individual property?

In fact, if we suppress the custom-houses, the alliance of the nations
is declared by that very act; their solidarity is recognized, and their
equality proclaimed. If we suppress the custom-houses, the principle of
association will not be slow in reaching from the State to the province,
from the province to the city, and from the city to the workshop. But,
then, what becomes of the privileges of authors and artists? Of what
use are the patents for invention, imagination, amelioration, and
improvement? When our deputies write a law of literary property by
the side of a law which opens a large breach in the custom-house they
contradict themselves, indeed, and pull down with one hand what they
build up with the other. Without the custom-house, literary property
does not exist, and the hopes of our starving authors are frustrated.
For, certainly you do not expect, with the good man Fourier, that
literary property will exercise itself in China to the profit of a
French writer; and that an ode of Lamartine, sold by privilege all over
the world, will bring in millions to its author! The poet's work
is peculiar to the climate in which he lives; every where else the
reproduction of his works, having no market value, should be frank and
free. But what! will it be necessary for nations to put themselves under
mutual surveillance for the sake of verses, statues, and elixirs? We
shall always have, then, an excise, a city-toll, rights of entrance
and transit, custom-houses finally; and then, as a reaction against
privilege, smuggling.

Smuggling! That word reminds me of one of the most horrible forms
of property. "Smuggling," you have said, sir, [46] "is an offence of
political creation; it is the exercise of natural liberty, defined as a
crime in certain cases by the will of the sovereign. The smuggler is a
gallant man,--a man of spirit, who gaily busies himself in procuring for
his neighbor, at a very low price, a jewel, a shawl, or any other object
of necessity or luxury, which domestic monopoly renders excessively
dear. " Then, to a very poetical monograph of the smuggler, you add this
dismal conclusion,--that the smuggler belongs to the family of Mandrin,
and that the galleys should be his home!


But, sir, you have not called attention to the horrible exploitation
which is carried on in this way in the name of property.

It is said,--and I give this report only as an hypothesis and an
illustration, for I do not believe it,--it is said that the present
minister of finances owes his fortune to smuggling. M. Humann, of
Strasbourg, sent out of France, it is said, enormous quantities of
sugar, for which he received the bounty on exportation promised by
the State; then, smuggling this sugar back again, he exported it anew,
receiving the bounty on exportation a second time, and so on. Notice,
sir, that I do not state this as a fact; I give it only as it is told,
not endorsing or even believing it. My sole design is to fix the idea in
the mind by an example. If I believed that a minister had committed such
a crime, that is, if I had personal and authentic knowledge that he had,
I would denounce M. Humann, the minister of finances, to the Chamber of
Deputies, and would loudly demand his expulsion from the ministry.

But that which is undoubtedly false of M. Humann is true of many others,
as rich and no less honorable than he. Smuggling, organized on a large
scale by the eaters of human flesh, is carried on to the profit of a few
pashas at the risk and peril of their imprudent victims. The inactive
proprietor offers his merchandise for sale; the actual smuggler risks
his liberty, his honor, and his life. If success crowns the enterprise,
the courageous servant gets paid for his journey; the profit goes to
the coward. If fortune or treachery delivers the instrument of this
execrable traffic into the hands of the custom-house officer, the
master-smuggler suffers a loss which a more fortunate voyage will soon
repair. The agent, pronounced a scoundrel, is thrown into prison in
company with robbers; while his glorious patron, a juror, elector,
deputy, or minister, makes laws concerning expropriation, monopoly, and
custom-houses!

I promised, at the beginning of this letter, that no attack on property
should escape my pen, my only object being to justify myself before the
public by a general recrimination. But I could not refrain from branding
so odious a mode of exploitation, and I trust that this short digression
will be pardoned. Property does not avenge, I hope, the injuries which
smuggling suffers.

The conspiracy against property is general; it is flagrant; it takes
possession of all minds, and inspires all our laws; it lies at the
bottom of all theories. Here the proletaire pursues property in the
street, there the legislator lays an interdict upon it; now, a professor
of political economy or of industrial legislation, [47] paid to defend
it, undermines it with redoubled blows; at another--time, an academy
calls it in question, [48] or inquires as to the progress of its
demolition. [49] To-day there is not an idea, not an opinion, not
a sect, which does not dream of muzzling property. None confess it,
because none are yet conscious of it; there are too few minds capable
of grasping spontaneously this ensemble of causes and effects,
of principles and consequences, by which I try to demonstrate the
approaching disappearance of property; on the other hand, the ideas that
are generally formed of this right are too divergent and too loosely
determined to allow an admission, so soon, of the contrary theory. Thus,
in the middle and lower ranks of literature and philosophy, no less than
among the common people, it is thought that, when property is abolished,
no one will be able to enjoy the fruit of his labor; that no one will
have any thing peculiar to himself, and that tyrannical communism will
be established on the ruins of family and liberty! --chimeras, which are
to support for a little while longer the cause of privilege.


But, before determining precisely the idea of property, before seeking
amid the contradictions of systems for the common element which must
form the basis of the new right, let us cast a rapid glance at
the changes which, at the various periods of history, property has
undergone. The political forms of nations are the expression of their
beliefs. The mobility of these forms, their modification and their
destruction, are solemn experiences which show us the value of ideas,
and gradually eliminate from the infinite variety of customs the
absolute, eternal, and immutable truth. Now, we shall see that every
political institution tends, necessarily, and on pain of death, to
equalize conditions; that every where and always equality of fortunes
(like equality of rights) has been the social aim, whether the plebeian
classes have endeavored to rise to political power by means of property,
or whether--rulers already--they have used political power to overthrow
property. We shall see, in short, by the progress of society, that the
consummation of justice lies in the extinction of individual domain.

For the sake of brevity, I will disregard the testimony of
ecclesiastical history and Christian theology: this subject deserves a
separate treatise, and I propose hereafter to return to it. Moses and
Jesus Christ proscribed, under the names of usury and inequality, [50]
all sorts of profit and increase. The church itself, in its purest
teachings, has always condemned property; and when I attacked, not only
the authority of the church, but also its infidelity to justice, I did
it to the glory of religion. I wanted to provoke a peremptory reply, and
to pave the way for Christianity's triumph, in spite of the innumerable
attacks of which it is at present the object. I hoped that an apologist
would arise forthwith, and, taking his stand upon the Scriptures, the
Fathers, the canons, and the councils and constitutions of the Popes,
would demonstrate that the church always has maintained the doctrine of
equality, and would attribute to temporary necessity the contradictions
of its discipline. Such a labor would serve the cause of religion
as well as that of equality. We must know, sooner or later, whether
Christianity is to be regenerated in the church or out of it, and
whether this church accepts the reproaches cast upon it of hatred to
liberty and antipathy to progress. Until then we will suspend judgment,
and content ourselves with placing before the clergy the teachings of
history.


When Lycurgus undertook to make laws for Sparta, in what condition did
he find this republic? On this point all historians agree. The people
and the nobles were at war. The city was in a confused state, and
divided by two parties,--the party of the poor, and the party of the
rich. Hardly escaped from the barbarism of the heroic ages, society was
rapidly declining. The proletariat made war upon property, which, in its
turn, oppressed the proletariat. What did Lycurgus do? His first measure
was one of general security, at the very idea of which our legislators
would tremble. He abolished all debts; then, employing by turns
persuasion and force, he induced the nobles to renounce their
privileges, and re-established equality.

Lycurgus, in a word, hunted property out of Lacedaemon, seeing no other
way to harmonize liberty, equality, and law. I certainly should not wish
France to follow the example of Sparta; but it is remarkable that the
most ancient of Greek legislators, thoroughly acquainted with the nature
and needs of the people, more capable than any one else of appreciating
the legitimacy of the obligations which he, in the exercise of his
absolute authority, cancelled; who had compared the legislative
systems of his time, and whose wisdom an oracle had proclaimed,--it
is remarkable, I say, that Lycurgus should have judged the right of
property incompatible with free institutions, and should have thought it
his duty to preface his legislation by a coup d'etat which destroyed all
distinctions of fortune.

Lycurgus understood perfectly that the luxury, the love of enjoyments,
and the inequality of fortunes, which property engenders, are the bane
of society; unfortunately the means which he employed to preserve his
republic were suggested to him by false notions of political economy,
and by a superficial knowledge of the human heart. Accordingly,
property, which this legislator wrongly confounded with wealth,
reentered the city together with the swarm of evils which he was
endeavoring to banish; and this time Sparta was hopelessly corrupted.


"The introduction of wealth," says M. Pastoret, "was one of the
principal causes of the misfortunes which they experienced. Against
these, however, the laws had taken extraordinary precautions, the best
among which was the inculcation of morals which tended to suppress
desire. "


The best of all precautions would have been the anticipation of desire
by satisfaction. Possession is the sovereign remedy for cupidity,
a remedy which would have been the less perilous to Sparta because
fortunes there were almost equal, and conditions were nearly alike. As a
general thing, fasting and abstinence are bad teachers of moderation.

"There was a law," says M. Pastoret again, "to prohibit the rich from
wearing better clothing than the poor, from eating more delicate food,
and from owning elegant furniture, vases, carpets, fine houses," &c.
Lycurgus hoped, then, to maintain equality by rendering wealth useless.
How much wiser he would have been if, in accordance with his military
discipline, he had organized industry and taught the people to procure
by their own labor the things which he tried in vain to deprive them of.
In that case, enjoying happy thoughts and pleasant feelings, the citizen
would have known no other desire than that with which the legislator
endeavored to inspire him,--love of honor and glory, the triumphs of
talent and virtue.

"Gold and all kinds of ornaments were forbidden the women. " Absurd.
After the death of Lycurgus, his institutions became corrupted; and four
centuries before the Christian era not a vestige remained of the former
simplicity. Luxury and the thirst for gold were early developed among
the Spartans in a degree as intense as might have been expected from
their enforced poverty and their inexperience in the arts. Historians
have accused Pausanias, Lysander, Agesilaus, and others of having
corrupted the morals of their country by the introduction of wealth
obtained in war. It is a slander. The morals of the Spartans necessarily
grew corrupt as soon as the Lacedaemonian poverty came in contact with
Persian luxury and Athenian elegance. Lycurgus, then, made a fatal
mistake in attempting to inspire generosity and modesty by enforcing
vain and proud simplicity.


"Lycurgus was not frightened at idleness! A Lacedemonian, happening to
be in Athens (where idleness was forbidden) during the punishment of
a citizen who had been found guilty, asked to see the Athenian thus
condemned for having exercised the rights of a free man. . . . It was one
of the principles of Lycurguss, acted upon for several centuries, that
free men should not follow lucrative professions. . . . The women disdained
domestic labor; they did not spin their wool themselves, as did the
other Greeks [they did not, then, read Homer! ]; they left their slaves
to make their clothing for them. "--Pastoret: History of Legislation.


Could any thing be more contradictory? Lycurgus proscribed property
among the citizens, and founded the means of subsistence on the worst
form of property,--on property obtained by force. What wonder, after
that, that a lazy city, where no industry was carried on, became a den
of avarice? The Spartans succumbed the more easily to the allurements of
luxury and Asiatic voluptuousness, being placed entirely at their mercy
by their own coarseness. The same thing happened to the Romans, when
military success took them out of Italy,--a thing which the author
of the prosopopoeia of Fabricius could not explain. It is not the
cultivation of the arts which corrupts morals, but their degradation,
induced by inactive and luxurious opulence. The instinct of property
is to make the industry of Daedalus, as well as the talent of Phidias,
subservient to its own fantastic whims and disgraceful pleasures.
Property, not wealth, ruined the Spartans.

When Solon appeared, the anarchy caused by property was at its height
in the Athenian republic. "The inhabitants of Attica were divided
among themselves as to the form of government. Those who lived on the
mountains (the poor) preferred the popular form; those of the plain
(the middle class), the oligarchs; those by the sea coast, a mixture
of oligarchy and democracy. Other dissensions were arising from the
inequality of fortunes. The mutual antagonism of the rich and poor had
become so violent, that the one-man power seemed the only safe-guard
against the revolution with which the republic was threatened. "
(Pastoret: History of Legislation. )

Quarrels between the rich and the poor, which seldom occur in
monarchies, because a well established power suppresses dissensions,
seem to be the life of popular governments. Aristotle had noticed this.
The oppression of wealth submitted to agrarian laws, or to excessive
taxation; the hatred of the lower classes for the upper class, which
is exposed always to libellous charges made in hopes of
confiscation,--these were the features of the Athenian government which
were especially revolting to Aristotle, and which caused him to favor
a limited monarchy. Aristotle, if he had lived in our day, would have
supported the constitutional government. But, with all deference to the
Stagirite, a government which sacrifices the life of the proletaire to
that of the proprietor is quite as irrational as one which supports the
former by robbing the latter; neither of them deserve the support of a
free man, much less of a philosopher.

Solon followed the example of Lycurgus. He celebrated his legislative
inauguration by the abolition of debts,--that is, by bankruptcy. In
other words, Solon wound up the governmental machine for a longer or
shorter time depending upon the rate of interest. Consequently, when the
spring relaxed and the chain became unwound, the republic had either
to perish, or to recover itself by a second bankruptcy. This singular
policy was pursued by all the ancients. After the captivity of Babylon,
Nehemiah, the chief of the Jewish nation, abolished debts; Lycurgus
abolished debts; Solon abolished debts; the Roman people, after the
expulsion of the kings until the accession of the Caesars, struggled
with the Senate for the abolition of debts. Afterwards, towards the
end of the republic, and long after the establishment of the empire,
agriculture being abandoned, and the provinces becoming depopulated
in consequence of the excessive rates of interest, the emperors freely
granted the lands to whoever would cultivate them,--that is, they
abolished debts. No one, except Lycurgus, who went to the other extreme,
ever perceived that the great point was, not to release debtors by a
coup d'etat, but to prevent the contraction of debts in future.

On the contrary, the most democratic governments were always exclusively
based upon individual property; so that the social element of all these
republics was war between the citizens.

Solon decreed that a census should be taken of all fortunes, regulated
political rights by the result, granted to the larger proprietors more
influence, established the balance of powers,--in a word, inserted in
the constitution the most active leaven of discord; as if, instead of a
legislator chosen by the people, he had been their greatest enemy. Is
it not, indeed, the height of imprudence to grant equality of political
rights to men of unequal conditions? If a manufacturer, uniting all
his workmen in a joint-stock company, should give to each of them a
consultative and deliberative voice,--that is, should make all of them
masters,--would this equality of mastership secure continued inequality
of wages? That is the whole political system of Solon, reduced to its
simplest expression.


"In giving property a just preponderance," says M. Pastoret, "Solon
repaired, as far as he was able, his first official act,--the abolition
of debts. . . . He thought he owed it to public peace to make this great
sacrifice of acquired rights and natural equity. But the violation of
individual property and written contracts is a bad preface to a public
code. "


In fact, such violations are always cruelly punished. In '89 and '93,
the possessions of the nobility and the clergy were confiscated, the
clever proletaires were enriched; and to-day the latter, having become
aristocrats, are making us pay dearly for our fathers' robbery. What,
therefore, is to be done now? It is not for us to violate right, but to
restore it. Now, it would be a violation of justice to dispossess some
and endow others, and then stop there. We must gradually lower the rate
of interest, organize industry, associate laborers and their functions,
and take a census of the large fortunes, not for the purpose of granting
privileges, but that we may effect their redemption by settling a
life-annuity upon their proprietors. We must apply on a large scale the
principle of collective production, give the State eminent domain over
all capital! make each producer responsible, abolish the custom-house,
and transform every profession and trade into a public function. Thereby
large fortunes will vanish without confiscation or violence; individual
possession will establish itself, without communism, under the
inspection of the republic; and equality of conditions will no longer
depend simply on the will of citizens.

Of the authors who have written upon the Romans, Bossuet and Montesquieu
occupy prominent positions in the first rank; the first being generally
regarded as the father of the philosophy of history, and the second as
the most profound writer upon law and politics. Nevertheless, it could
be shown that these two great writers, each of them imbued with the
prejudices of their century and their cloth, have left the question of
the causes of the rise and fall of the Romans precisely where they found
it.

Bossuet is admirable as long as he confines himself to description:
witness, among other passages, the picture which he has given us
of Greece before the Persian War, and which seems to have inspired
"Telemachus;" the parallel between Athens and Sparta, drawn twenty
times since Bossuet; the description of the character and morals of
the ancient Romans; and, finally, the sublime peroration which ends the
"Discourse on Universal History. " But when the famous historian deals
with causes, his philosophy is at fault.


"The tribunes always favored the division of captured lands, or the
proceeds of their sale, among the citizens. The Senate steadfastly
opposed those laws which were damaging to the State, and wanted the
price of lands to be awarded to the public treasury. "


Thus, according to Bossuet, the first and greatest wrong of civil wars
was inflicted upon the people, who, dying of hunger, demanded that the
lands, which they had shed their blood to conquer, should be given to
them for cultivation. The patricians, who bought them to deliver to
their slaves, had more regard for justice and the public interests.
How little affects the opinions of men! If the roles of Cicero and the
Gracchi had been inverted, Bossuet, whose sympathies were aroused by the
eloquence of the great orator more than by the clamors of the tribunes,
would have viewed the agrarian laws in quite a different light. He
then would have understood that the interest of the treasury was only
a pretext; that, when the captured lands were put up at auction, the
patricians hastened to buy them, in order to profit by the revenues from
them,--certain, moreover, that the price paid would come back to them
sooner or later, in exchange either for supplies furnished by them to
the republic, or for the subsistence of the multitude, who could buy
only of them, and whose services at one time, and poverty at another,
were rewarded by the State. For a State does not hoard; on the contrary,
the public funds always return to the people.
If, then, a certain number
of men are the sole dealers in articles of primary necessity, it follows
that the public treasury, in passing and repassing through their hands,
deposits and accumulates real property there.

When Menenius related to the people his fable of the limbs and the
stomach, if any one had remarked to this story-teller that the stomach
freely gives to the limbs the nourishment which it freely receives, but
that the patricians gave to the plebeians only for cash, and lent to
them only at usury, he undoubtedly would have silenced the wily senator,
and saved the people from a great imposition. The Conscript Fathers
were fathers only of their own line. As for the common people, they were
regarded as an impure race, exploitable, taxable, and workable at the
discretion and mercy of their masters.

As a general thing, Bossuet shows little regard for the people. His
monarchical and theological instincts know nothing but authority,
obedience, and alms-giving, under the name of charity.

This unfortunate disposition constantly leads him to mistake symptoms
for causes; and his depth, which is so much admired, is borrowed from
his authors, and amounts to very little, after all.

When he says, for instance, that "the dissensions in the republic, and
finally its fall, were caused by the jealousies of its citizens, and
their love of liberty carried to an extreme and intolerable extent," are
we not tempted to ask him what caused those JEALOUSIES? --what inspired
the people with that LOVE OF LIBERTY, EXTREME AND INTOLERABLE? It would
be useless to reply, The corruption of morals; the disregard for the
ancient poverty; the debaucheries, luxury, and class jealousies; the
seditious character of the Gracchi, &c. Why did the morals become
corrupt, and whence arose those eternal dissensions between the
patricians and the plebeians?

In Rome, as in all other places, the dissension between the rich and
the poor was not caused directly by the desire for wealth (people, as
a general thing, do not covet that which they deem it illegitimate to
acquire), but by a natural instinct of the plebeians, which led them to
seek the cause of their adversity in the constitution of the republic.
So we are doing to-day; instead of altering our public economy, we
demand an electoral reform. The Roman people wished to return to the
social compact; they asked for reforms, and demanded a revision of
the laws, and a creation of new magistracies. The patricians, who had
nothing to complain of, opposed every innovation. Wealth always has been
conservative. Nevertheless, the people overcame the resistance of the
Senate; the electoral right was greatly extended; the privileges of
the plebeians were increased,--they had their representatives, their
tribunes, and their consuls; but, notwithstanding these reforms, the
republic could not be saved. When all political expedients had been
exhausted, when civil war had depleted the population, when the Caesars
had thrown their bloody mantle over the cancer which was consuming the
empire,--inasmuch as accumulated property always was respected, and
since the fire never stopped, the nation had to perish in the flames.
The imperial power was a compromise which protected the property of the
rich, and nourished the proletaires with wheat from Africa and Sicily:
a double error, which destroyed the aristocrats by plethora and
the commoners by famine. At last there was but one real proprietor
left,--the emperor,--whose dependent, flatterer, parasite, or slave,
each citizen became; and when this proprietor was ruined, those who
gathered the crumbs from under his table, and laughed when he cracked
his jokes, perished also.

Montesquieu succeeded no better than Bossuet in fathoming the causes of
the Roman decline; indeed, it may be said that the president has only
developed the ideas of the bishop. If the Romans had been more moderate
in their conquests, more just to their allies, more humane to the
vanquished; if the nobles had been less covetous, the emperors less
lawless, the people less violent, and all classes less corrupt; if. . .
&c. ,--perhaps the dignity of the empire might have been preserved, and
Rome might have retained the sceptre of the world! That is all that can
be gathered from the teachings of Montesquieu. But the truth of history
does not lie there; the destinies of the world are not dependent upon
such trivial causes. The passions of men, like the contingencies of time
and the varieties of climate, serve to maintain the forces which move
humanity and produce all historical changes; but they do not explain
them. The grain of sand of which Pascal speaks would have caused the
death of one man only, had not prior action ordered the events of which
this death was the precursor.

Montesquieu has read extensively; he knows Roman history thoroughly, is
perfectly well acquainted with the people of whom he speaks, and sees
very clearly why they were able to conquer their rivals and govern the
world. While reading him we admire the Romans, but we do not like them;
we witness their triumphs without pleasure, and we watch their fall
without sorrow. Montesquieu's work, like the works of all French
writers, is skilfully composed,--spirited, witty, and filled with wise
observations. He pleases, interests, instructs, but leads to little
reflection; he does not conquer by depth of thought; he does not exalt
the mind by elevated reason or earnest feeling. In vain should we search
his writings for knowledge of antiquity, the character of primitive
society, or a description of the heroic ages, whose morals and
prejudices lived until the last days of the republic. Vico, painting the
Romans with their horrible traits, represents them as excusable, because
he shows that all their conduct was governed by preexisting ideas and
customs, and that they were informed, so to speak, by a superior genius
of which they were unconscious; in Montesquieu, the Roman atrocity
revolts, but is not explained. Therefore, as a writer, Montesquieu
brings greater credit upon French literature; as a philosopher, Vico
bears away the palm.

Originally, property in Rome was national, not private. Numa was
the first to establish individual property by distributing the lands
captured by Romulus. What was the dividend of this distribution effected
by Numa? What conditions were imposed upon individuals, what powers
reserved to the State? None whatever. Inequality of fortunes, absolute
abdication by the republic of its right of eminent domain over the
property of citizens,--such were the first results of the division of
Numa, who justly may be regarded as the originator of Roman revolutions.
He it was who instituted the worship of the god Terminus,--the guardian
of private possession, and one of the most ancient gods of Italy. It
was Numa who placed property under the protection of Jupiter; who,
in imitation of the Etrurians, wished to make priests of the
land-surveyors; who invented a liturgy for cadastral operations, and
ceremonies of consecration for the marking of boundaries,--who, in
short, made a religion of property. [51] All these fancies would have
been more beneficial than dangerous, if the holy king had not forgotten
one essential thing; namely, to fix the amount that each citizen could
possess, and on what conditions he could possess it. For, since it is
the essence of property to continually increase by accession and profit,
and since the lender will take advantage of every opportunity to apply
this principle inherent in property, it follows that properties tend, by
means of their natural energy and the religious respect which protects
them, to absorb each other, and fortunes to increase or diminish to an
indefinite extent,--a process which necessarily results in the ruin
of the people, and the fall of the republic. Roman history is but the
development of this law.


Scarcely had the Tarquins been banished from Rome and the monarchy
abolished, when quarrels commenced between the orders. In the year
494 B. C. , the secession of the commonalty to the Mons Sacer led to the
establishment of the tribunate. Of what did the plebeians complain?
That they were poor, exhausted by the interest which they paid to the
proprietors,--_foeneratoribus;_ that the republic, administered for the
benefit of the nobles, did nothing for the people; that, delivered over
to the mercy of their creditors, who could sell them and their children,
and having neither hearth nor home, they were refused the means of
subsistence, while the rate of interest was kept at its highest point,
&c. For five centuries, the sole policy of the Senate was to evade
these just complaints; and, notwithstanding the energy of the tribunes,
notwithstanding the eloquence of the Gracchi, the violence of Marius,
and the triumph of Caesar, this execrable policy succeeded only too
well. The Senate always temporized; the measures proposed by the
tribunes might be good, but they were inopportune. It admitted that
something should be done; but first it was necessary that the people
should resume the performance of their duties, because the Senate could
not yield to violence, and force must be employed only by the law. If
the people--out of respect for legality--took this beautiful advice, the
Senate conjured up a difficulty; the reform was postponed, and that was
the end of it. On the contrary, if the demands of the proletaires became
too pressing, it declared a foreign war, and neighboring nations were
deprived of their liberty, to maintain the Roman aristocracy.

But the toils of war were only a halt for the plebeians in their onward
march towards pauperism. The lands confiscated from the conquered
nations were immediately added to the domain of the State, to the ager
publicus; and, as such, cultivated for the benefit of the treasury; or,
as was more often the case, they were sold at auction. None of them were
granted to the proletaires, who, unlike the patricians and knights, were
not supplied by the victory with the means of buying them. War never
enriched the soldier; the extensive plundering has been done always by
the generals. The vans of Augereau, and of twenty others, are famous in
our armies; but no one ever heard of a private getting rich. Nothing was
more common in Rome than charges of peculation, extortion, embezzlement,
and brigandage, carried on in the provinces at the head of armies, and
in other public capacities. All these charges were quieted by intrigue,
bribery of the judges, or desistance of the accuser. The culprit was
allowed always in the end to enjoy his spoils in peace; his son was only
the more respected on account of his father's crimes. And, in fact, it
could not be otherwise. What would become of us, if every deputy, peer,
or public functionary should be called upon to show his title to his
fortune!


"The patricians arrogated the exclusive enjoyment of the ager publicus;
and, like the feudal seigniors, granted some portions of their lands to
their dependants,--a wholly precarious concession, revocable at the will
of the grantor. The plebeians, on the contrary, were entitled to the
enjoyment of only a little pasture-land left to them in common:
an utterly unjust state of things, since, in consequence of it,
taxation--_census_--weighed more heavily upon the poor than upon the
rich. The patrician, in fact, always exempted himself from the tithe
which he owed as the price and as the acknowledgment of the concession
of domain; and, on the other hand, paid no taxes on his POSSESSIONS,
if, as there is good reason to believe, only citizens' property was
taxed. "--Laboulaye: History of Property.


In order thoroughly to understand the preceding quotation, we must know
that the estates of CITIZENS--that is, estates independent of the public
domain, whether they were obtained in the division of Numa, or had since
been sold by the questors--were alone regarded as PROPERTY; upon these
a tax, or _cense_, was imposed. On the contrary, the estates obtained
by concessions of the public domain, of the ager publicus (for which a
light rent was paid), were called POSSESSIONS. Thus, among the Romans,
there was a RIGHT OF PROPERTY and a RIGHT OF POSSESSION regulating the
administration of all estates. Now, what did the proletaires wish? That
the jus possessionis--the simple right of possession--should be extended
to them at the expense, as is evident, not of private property, but of
the public domain,--agri publici. The proletaires, in short, demanded
that they should be tenants of the land which they had conquered. This
demand, the patricians in their avarice never would accede to. Buying
as much of this land as they could, they afterwards found means of
obtaining the rest as POSSESSIONS. Upon this land they employed their
slaves. The people, who could not buy, on account of the competition
of the rich, nor hire, because--cultivating with their own hands--they
could not promise a rent equal to the revenue which the land would
yield when cultivated by slaves, were always deprived of possession and
property.

Civil wars relieved, to some extent, the sufferings of the multitude.
"The people enrolled themselves under the banners of the ambitious, in
order to obtain by force that which the law refused them,--property. A
colony was the reward of a victorious legion. But it was no longer
the ager publicus only; it was all Italy that lay at the mercy of the
legions. The ager publicus disappeared almost entirely,. . . but the
cause of the evil--accumulated property--became more potent than ever. "
(Laboulaye: History of Property. )


The author whom I quote does not tell us why this division of
territory which followed civil wars did not arrest the encroachments of
accumulated property; the omission is easily supplied. Land is not
the only requisite for cultivation; a working-stock is also
necessary,--animals, tools, harnesses, a house, an advance, &c. Where
did the colonists, discharged by the dictator who rewarded them, obtain
these things? From the purse of the usurers; that is, of the patricians,
to whom all these lands finally returned, in consequence of the rapid
increase of usury, and the seizure of estates. Sallust, in his account
of the conspiracy of Catiline, tells us of this fact. The conspirators
were old soldiers of Sylla, who, as a reward for their services, had
received from him lands in Cisalpine Gaul, Tuscany, and other parts of
the peninsula Less than twenty years had elapsed since these colonists,
free of debt, had left the service and commenced farming; and already
they were crippled by usury, and almost ruined. The poverty caused
by the exactions of creditors was the life of this conspiracy which
well-nigh inflamed all Italy, and which, with a worthier chief and
fairer means, possibly would have succeeded. In Rome, the mass of the
people were favorable to the conspirators--_cuncta plebes Catilinae
incepta probabat;_ the allies were weary of the patricians' robberies;
deputies from the Allobroges (the Savoyards) had come to Rome to appeal
to the Senate in behalf of their fellow-citizens involved in debt; in
short, the complaint against the large proprietors was universal. "We
call men and gods to witness," said the soldiers of Catiline, who were
Roman citizens with not a slave among them, "that we have taken arms
neither against the country, nor to attack any one, but in defence of
our lives and liberties. Wretched, poor, most of us deprived of country,
all of us of fame and fortune, by the violence and cruelty of usurers,
we have no rights, no property, no liberty. " [52]


The bad reputation of Catiline, and his atrocious designs, the
imprudence of his accomplices, the treason of several, the strategy
of Cicero, the angry outbursts of Cato, and the terror of the
Senate, baffled this enterprise, which, in furnishing a precedent for
expeditions against the rich, would perhaps have saved the republic, and
given peace to the world. But Rome could not evade her destiny; the end
of her expiations had not come. A nation never was known to anticipate
its punishment by a sudden and unexpected conversion. Now, the
long-continued crimes of the Eternal City could not be atoned for by
the massacre of a few hundred patricians. Catiline came to stay divine
vengeance; therefore his conspiracy failed.

The encroachment of large proprietors upon small proprietors, by the aid
of usury, farm-rent, and profits of all sorts, was common throughout the
empire. The most honest citizens invested their money at high rates of
interest. [53] Cato, Cicero, Brutus, all the stoics so noted for
their frugality, _viri frugi_,--Seneca, the teacher of virtue,--levied
enormous taxes in the provinces, under the name of usury; and it is
something remarkable, that the last defenders of the republic, the proud
Pompeys, were all usurious aristocrats, and oppressors of the poor.
But the battle of Pharsalus, having killed men only, without touching
institutions, the encroachments of the large domains became every day
more active. Ever since the birth of Christianity, the Fathers have
opposed this invasion with all their might. Their writings are filled
with burning curses upon this crime of usury, of which Christians are
not always innocent.


St. Cyprian complains of certain bishops of his time, who, absorbed in
disgraceful stock-jobbing operations, abandoned their churches, and went
about the provinces appropriating lands by artifice and fraud, while
lending money and piling up interests upon interests. [54] Why, in the
midst of this passion for accumulation, did not the possession of the
public land, like private property, become concentrated in a few hands?


By law, the domain of the State was inalienable, and consequently
possession was always revocable; but the edict of the praetor continued
it indefinitely, so that finally the possessions of the patricians were
transformed into absolute property, though the name, possessions,
was still applied to them. This conversion, instigated by senatorial
avarice; owed its accomplishment to the most deplorable and indiscreet
policy. If, in the time of Tiberius Gracchus, who wished to limit each
citizen's possession of the ager publicus to five hundred acres, the
amount of this possession had been fixed at as much as one family could
cultivate, and granted on the express condition that the possessor
should cultivate it himself, and should lease it to no one, the empire
never would have been desolated by large estates; and possession,
instead of increasing property, would have absorbed it. On what, then,
depended the establishment and maintenance of equality in conditions
and fortunes? On a more equitable division of the ager publicus, a wiser
distribution of the right of possession.

I insist upon this point, which is of the utmost importance, because
it gives us an opportunity to examine the history of this individual
possession, of which I said so much in my first memoir, and which so few
of my readers seem to have understood. The Roman republic--having, as
it did, the power to dispose absolutely of its territory, and to impose
conditions upon possessors--was nearer to liberty and equality than any
nation has been since. If the Senate had been intelligent and just,--if,
at the time of the retreat to the Mons Sacer, instead of the ridiculous
farce enacted by Menenius Agrippa, a solemn renunciation of the right
to acquire had been made by each citizen on attaining his share of
possessions,--the republic, based upon equality of possessions and the
duty of labor, would not, in attaining its wealth, have degenerated
in morals; Fabricius would have enjoyed the arts without controlling
artists; and the conquests of the ancient Romans would have been the
means of spreading civilization, instead of the series of murders and
robberies that they were.

But property, having unlimited power to amass and to lease, was daily
increased by the addition of new possessions. From the time of Nero, six
individuals were the sole proprietors of one-half of Roman Africa. In
the fifth century, the wealthy families had incomes of no less than
two millions: some possessed as many as twenty thousand slaves. All
the authors who have written upon the causes of the fall of the Roman
republic concur.

M. Giraud of Aix [55] quotes the testimony of Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch,
Olympiodorus, and Photius. Under Vespasian and Titus, Pliny, the
naturalist, exclaimed: "Large estates have ruined Italy, and are ruining
the provinces. "


But it never has been understood that the extension of property was
effected then, as it is to-day, under the aegis of the law, and by
virtue of the constitution. When the Senate sold captured lands at
auction, it was in the interest of the treasury and of public welfare.
When the patricians bought up possessions and property, they realized
the purpose of the Senate's decrees; when they lent at high rates of
interest, they took advantage of a legal privilege. "Property," said the
lender, "is the right to enjoy even to the extent of abuse, _jus utendi
et abutendi_; that is, the right to lend at interest,--to lease, to
acquire, and then to lease and lend again. " But property is also the
right to exchange, to transfer, and to sell. If, then, the social
condition is such that the proprietor, ruined by usury, may be compelled
to sell his possession, the means of his subsistence, he will sell
it; and, thanks to the law, accumulated property--devouring and
anthropophagous property--will be established. [56]


The immediate and secondary cause of the decline of the Romans
was, then, the internal dissensions between the two orders of the
republic,--the patricians and the plebeians,--dissensions which gave
rise to civil wars, proscriptions, and loss of liberty, and finally led
to the empire; but the primary and mediate cause of their decline was
the establishment by Numa of the institution of property.

I end with an extract from a work which I have quoted several times
already, and which has recently received a prize from the Academy of
Moral and Political Sciences:--


"The concentration of property," says M. Laboulaye, "while causing
extreme poverty, forced the emperors to feed and amuse the people, that
they might forget their misery. _Panem et circenses:_ that was the Roman
law in regard to the poor; a dire and perhaps a necessary evil wherever
a landed aristocracy exists.

"To feed these hungry mouths, grain was brought from Africa and the
provinces, and distributed gratuitously among the needy. In the time of
Caesar, three hundred and twenty thousand people were thus fed. Augustus
saw that such a measure led directly to the destruction of husbandry;
but to abolish these distributions was to put a weapon within the reach
of the first aspirant for power.

"The emperor shrank at the thought.

"While grain was gratuitous, agriculture was impossible. Tillage gave
way to pasturage, another cause of depopulation, even among slaves.

"Finally, luxury, carried further and further every day, covered the
soil of Italy with elegant villas, which occupied whole cantons. Gardens
and groves replaced the fields, and the free population fled to the
towns. Husbandry disappeared almost entirely, and with husbandry the
husbandman. Africa furnished the wheat, and Greece the wine. Tiberius
complained bitterly of this evil, which placed the lives of the Roman
people at the mercy of the winds and waves: that was his anxiety. One
day later, and three hundred thousand starving men walked the streets of
Rome: that was a revolution.

"This decline of Italy and the provinces did not stop. After the
reign of Nero, depopulation commenced in towns as noted as Antium and
Tarentum. Under the reign of Pertinax, there was so much desert land
that the emperor abandoned it, even that which belonged to the treasury,
to whoever would cultivate it, besides exempting the farmers from
taxation for a period of ten years. Senators were compelled to invest
one-third of their fortunes in real estate in Italy; but this measure
served only to increase the evil which they wished to cure. To force
the rich to possess in Italy was to increase the large estates which
had ruined the country. And must I say, finally, that Aurelian wished to
send the captives into the desert lands of Etruria, and that Valentinian
was forced to settle the Alamanni on the fertile banks of the Po? "


If the reader, in running through this book, should complain of meeting
with nothing but quotations from other works, extracts from journals
and public lectures, comments upon laws, and interpretations of them, I
would remind him that the very object of this memoir is to establish the
conformity of my opinion concerning property with that universally held;
that, far from aiming at a paradox, it has been my main study to follow
the advice of the world; and, finally, that my sole pretension is to
clearly formulate the general belief. I cannot repeat it too often,--and
I confess it with pride,--I teach absolutely nothing that is new; and I
should regard the doctrine which I advocate as radically erroneous, if a
single witness should testify against it.

Let us now trace the revolutions in property among the Barbarians.

As long as the German tribes dwelt in their forests, it did not occur
to them to divide and appropriate the soil. The land was held in common:
each individual could plow, sow, and reap. But, when the empire was once
invaded, they bethought themselves of sharing the land, just as
they shared spoils after a victory. "Hence," says M. Laboulaye, "the
expressions _sortes Burgundiorum Gothorum_ and {GREEK, ' k }; hence the
German words _allod_, allodium, and _loos_, lot, which are used in all
modern languages to designate the gifts of chance. "

Allodial property, at least with the mass of coparceners, was originally
held, then, in equal shares; for all of the prizes were equal, or, at
least, equivalent. This property, like that of the Romans, was wholly
individual, independent, exclusive, transferable, and consequently
susceptible of accumulation and invasion. But, instead of its being, as
was the case among the Romans, the large estate which, through
increase and usury, subordinated and absorbed the small one, among
the Barbarians--fonder of war than of wealth, more eager to dispose
of persons than to appropriate things--it was the warrior who, through
superiority of arms, enslaved his adversary. The Roman wanted matter;
the Barbarian wanted man. Consequently, in the feudal ages, rents were
almost nothing,--simply a hare, a partridge, a pie, a few pints of wine
brought by a little girl, or a Maypole set up within the suzerain's
reach. In return, the vassal or incumbent had to follow the seignior
to battle (a thing which happened almost every day), and equip and feed
himself at his own expense. "This spirit of the German tribes--this
spirit of companionship and association--governed the territory as it
governed individuals. The lands, like the men, were secured to a chief
or seignior by a bond of mutual protection and fidelity. This subjection
was the labor of the German epoch which gave birth to feudalism. By fair
means or foul, every proprietor who could not be a chief was forced to
be a vassal. " (Laboulaye: History of Property. )

By fair means or foul, every mechanic who cannot be a master has to be
a journeyman; every proprietor who is not an invader will be invaded;
every producer who cannot, by the exploitation of other men, furnish
products at less than their proper value, will lose his labor.
Corporations and masterships, which are hated so bitterly, but which
will reappear if we are not careful, are the necessary results of
the principle of competition which is inherent in property; their
organization was patterned formerly after that of the feudal hierarchy,
which was the result of the subordination of men and possessions.

The times which paved the way for the advent of feudalism and the
reappearance of large proprietors were times of carnage and the most
frightful anarchy. Never before had murder and violence made such havoc
with the human race. The tenth century, among others, if my memory
serves me rightly, was called the CENTURY OF IRON. His property, his
life, and the honor of his wife and children always in danger the
small proprietor made haste to do homage to his seignior, and to
bestow something on the church of his freehold, that he might receive
protection and security.


"Both facts and laws bear witness that from the sixth to the tenth
century the proprietors of small freeholds were gradually plundered,
or reduced by the encroachments of large proprietors and counts to the
condition of either vassals or tributaries. The Capitularies are full
of repressive provisions; but the incessant reiteration of these
threats only shows the perseverance of the evil and the impotency of the
government. Oppression, moreover, varies but little in its methods. The
complaints of the free proprietors, and the groans of the plebeians
at the time of the Gracchi, were one and the same. It is said that,
whenever a poor man refused to give his estate to the bishop, the
curate, the count, the judge, or the centurion, these immediately sought
an opportunity to ruin him. They made him serve in the army until,
completely ruined, he was induced, by fair means or foul, to give up his
freehold. "--Laboulaye: History of Property.

How many small proprietors and manufacturers have not been ruined by
large ones through chicanery, law-suits, and competition? Strategy,
violence, and usury,--such are the proprietor's methods of plundering
the laborer.

Thus we see property, at all ages and in all its forms, oscillating by
virtue of its principle between two opposite terms,--extreme division
and extreme accumulation.

Property, at its first term, is almost null. Reduced to personal
exploitation, it is property only potentially. At its second term, it
exists in its perfection; then it is truly property.

When property is widely distributed, society thrives, progresses, grows,
and rises quickly to the zenith of its power. Thus, the Jews, after
leaving Babylon with Esdras and Nehemiah, soon became richer and more
powerful than they had been under their kings. Sparta was in a strong
and prosperous condition during the two or three centuries which
followed the death of Lycurgus. The best days of Athens were those of
the Persian war; Rome, whose inhabitants were divided from the beginning
into two classes,--the exploiters and the exploited,--knew no such thing
as peace.