No More Learning

In all the views of receipt, expenditure, and personal employment, a soberJlegislator would cartltJ compare the pos se -oer. whom he was. . xrec Aed
to expel with the stranger who was proposed to fill
his place. Before the inconveniences are incurred
which must attend all violent revolutions in property through extensive confiscation, we ought to have some rational assurance that the purchasers of the
confiscated property will be in a considerable degree
more laborious, more virtuous, more sober, less disposed to extort an unreasonable proportion of the gains of the laborer, or to consume on themselves a
larger share than is fit for the measure of an individual, --or that they should be qualified to dispense the
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 445
surplus in a more steady and equal mode, so as to
answer the purposes of a politic expenditure, than
the old possessors, call those possessors bishops, or
canons, or commendatory abbots, or monks, or what
you please. The monks are lazy. Be it so. Suppose them no otherwise employed than by singing in
the choir. They are as usefully employed as those
who neither sing nor say, --as usefully even as those
who sing upon the stage. They are as usefully employed as if they worked from dawn to dark in the
innumerable servile, degrading, unseemly, unmanly,
and often most unwholesome and pestiferous occupations to which by the social economy so many
wretches are inevitably doomed. If it were not generally pernicious to disturb the natural course of
things, and to impede in any degree the great wheel
of circulation which is turned by the strangely directed labor of these unhappy people, I should be infinitely more inclined forcibly to rescue them from their miserable industry than violently to disturb the tranquil repose of monastic quietude. Humanity, and
perhaps policy, might better justify me in the one
than in the other. It is a subject on which I have
often reflected, and never reflected without feeling
from it. I am sure that no consideration, except
the necessity of submitting to the yoke of luxury
and the despotism of fancy, who in their own imperious way will distribute the surplus product of the
soil, can justify the toleration of such trades and
employments in a well-regulated state. But for this
purpose of distribution, it seems to me that the idle
expenses of monks are quite as well directed as the
idle expenses of us lay loiterers.
When the advantages of the possession and of the
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project are on a par, there is no motive for a change.
But in the present case, perhaps, they are not upon a
par, and the difference is in favor of the possession.
It does not appear to me that the expenses of those
whom you are going to expel do in fact take a
course so directly and so generally leading to vitiate
and degrade and render miserable those through
whom they pass as the expenses of those favorites
whom you are intruding into their houses. Why
should the expenditure of a great landed property,
which is a dispersion of the surplus product of the
soil, appear intolerable to you or to me, when it takes
its course through the accumulation of vast libraries,
which are the history of the force and weakness of
the human mind,- through great collections of ancient records, medals, and coins, which attest and
explain laws and customs, -through paintings and
statues, that, by imitating Nature, seem to extend the
limits of creation, -through grand monuments of the
dead, which continue the regards and connections of
life beyond the grave, - through collections of the
specimens of Nature, which become a representative
assembly of all the classes and families of the world,
that by disposi. tion facilitate, and by exciting curiosity open, the avenues to science? If by great permanent establishments all these objects of expense are better secured from the inconstant sport of personal
caprice and personal extravagance, are they worse
than if the same tastes prevailed in scattered individuals? Does not the sweat of the mason and carpenter, who toil in order to partake the sweat of the peasant, flow as pleasantly and as salubriously in the
construction and repair of the majestic edifices of religion as in the painted booths and sordid sties of
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 447
vice and luxury? as honorably and as profitably in
repairing those sacred works which grow hoary with
innumerable years as on the momentary receptacles
of transient voluptuousness, --in opera-houses, and
brothels, and gaming-houses, and club-houses, and
obelisks in the Champ de Mars? Is the surplus
product of the olive and the vine worse employed in
the frugal sustenance of persons whom the fictions
of a pious imagination raise to dignity by construing
in the service of God than in pampering the innumerable multitude of those who are degraded by being made useless domestics, subservient to the pride of man? Are the decorations of temples an expenditure less worthy a wise man than ribbons, and laces,
and national cockades, and petit maisons, and petit
soupers, and all the innumerable fopperies and follies
in which opulence sports away the burden of its superfluity?
We tolerate even these,- not from love of them,
but for fear of worse. We tolerate them, because
property and liberty, to a degree, require that toleration. But why proscribe the other, and surely, in
every point of view, the more laudable use of estates?
Why, through the violation of all property, through
an outrage upon every principle of liberty, forcibly
carry them from the better to the worse?
This comparison between the new individuals and
the old corps is made upon a supposition that no reform could be made in the latter. But, in a question
of reformation, I always consider corporate bodies,
whether sole or consisting of many, to be much more
susceptible of a public direction, by the power of the
state, in the use of their property, and in the regulation of modes and habits of life in their members,
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than private citizens ever can be, or perhaps ought to
be; and this seems to me a very material consideration for those who undertake anything which merits
the name of a politic enterprise. - So far as to the
estates of monasteries.
With regard to the estates possessed by bishops
and canons and commendatory abbots, I cannot find
out for what reason some landed estates may not be
held otherwise than by inheritance. Can any philosophic spoiler undertake to demonstrate the positive
or the comparative evil of having a certain, and that,
too, a large, portion of landed property passing in succession through persons whose title to it is, always in theory and often in fact, an eminent degree of piety,
morals, and learning; a property which by its destination, in their turn, and on the score of merit, gives
to the noblest families renovation and support, to the
lowest the means of dignity and elevation; a property, the tenure of which is the performance of some duty, (whatever value you may choose to set upon
that duty,) and the character of whose proprietors
demands at least an exterior decorum and gravity of
manners, -- who are to exercise a generous, but temperate hospitality, --part of whose income they are to consider as a trust for charity,-and who, even when
they fail in their trust, when they slide from their
character, and degenerate into a mere common secular
nobleman or gentleman, are in no respect worse than
those who may succeed them in their forfeited possessions? Is it better that estates should be held by those who have no duty than by those who have one?
by those whose character and destination point to
virtues than by those who have no rule and direction
in the expenditure of their estates but their own will
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aind appetite? Nor are these estates held altogether
in the character or with the evils supposed inherent
in mortmain. They pass from hand to hand with a
more rapid circulation than any other. No excess is
good, and therefore too great a proportion of landed
property may be held officially for life; but it does
not seem to me of material injury to any common
wealth that there should exist some estates that have
a chance of being acquired by other means than the
previous acquisition of money.
This letter is grown to a great length, though it
is, indeed, short with regard to the infinite extent of
the subject. Various avocations have from time to;,
time called my mind from the subject. I was not
sorry to give myself leisure to observe whether in
the proceedings of the National Assembly I might
not find reasons to change or to qualify some of my
first sentiments. Everything has confirmed me more
strongly in my'first opinions. It was my original
purpose to take a view of the principles of the National Assembly with regard to the great and fundamental establishments, and to compare the whole of what you have substituted in the place of what you
have destroyed with the several members of our British Constitution. But this plan is of greater extent,
than at first I computed, and I find that you have
little desire to take the advantage of any examples.
At present I must content myself with some remarks
upon your establishments, reserving for another time
what I proposed to say concerning the spirit of our
British monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, as practically they exist.
I have taken a view of what has been done by the
VOL. III. 29
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governing power ill France. I have certainly spoke
of it with freedom. Those whose principle it is to
despise the ancient, permanent sense of mankind,
and to set up a scheme of society on new principles,
must naturally expect that such of us who think
better of the judgment of the human race than of
theirs should consider both them and their devices
as men and schemes upon their trial. They must
take it for granted. that we attend much to their reason, but not at all to their authority. They have
not one of the great influencing prejudices of mankind inll their favor. They avow their hostility to
opinion. Of course they must expect no support
from that influence, which, with every other authority, they have deposed from the seat of its jurisdiction. I can never consider this Assembly as anything
else than a voluntary association of men who have
availe' themselves of circumstances to seize upon the
1poer of tile state. They have not'the sanctioe and
authority of the character under which they first
met. They have assumed another of a very different nature, and have completely altered and inverted
all the relations in which they originally stood. They
do not hold the authority they exercise under any
constitutional law of the state. They have departed
from the instructions of the people by whom they
were sent; which instructions, as the Assembly'did
not act in virtue of any ancient usage qr settled law,
were the sole source of their authority. The most
considerable of their acts have not been done by great
majorities; and in this sort of near divisions, which
carry only the constructive authority of the whole,
strangers will consider reasons as well as resolutions.
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If they had set up this new, experimental government as a necessary substitute for an expelled tyranny, mankind would anticipate the time of prescription, which through long usage mellows into legality governments that were violent in their commencement. All those who have affections which lead
them to the conservation of civil order would recognize, even in its cradle, the child as legitimate,
which has been produced from those principles of
cogent expediency to which all just governments owe
their birth, and on which they justify their continuance. But they will be late and reluctant in giving
any sort of countenance to the operations of a power
which has derived its birth from no law and no necessity, but which, on the contrary, has had its origin
in those vices and sinister practices by which the social union is often disturbed and sometimes destroyed.
This Assembly has hardly a year's prescription. We
have their own word for it that they have made a
revolution. To make a revolution is a measure
which, primd fronte, requires ail apology. To make
a revolution is to subvert the ancient state of our
country; and no common reasons are called for to
justify so violent a proceeding. The sense of man
kind authorizes us to examine into the mode of acquiring new power, and to criticize on the use that
is made of it, with less awe and reverence than that
which is usually conceded to a settled and recognized
authority.
In obtaining and securing their power, the Assembly proceeds upon principles the most opposite from
those which appear to direct them in the use of it.
An observation on this difference will let us into the
true spirit of their conduct. Everything which they
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have done, or continue to do, in order to obtain and
keep their power, is by the most common arts. They
proceed exactly as their ancestors of ambition have
done before them. Trace them through all their artifices, frauds, and violences, you can find nothing
at all that is new'. They follow precedents and examples with the punctilious exactness of a pleader.
They never depart an iota from the authentic formulas of tyranny and usurpation. But in all the regulations relative to the public good the spirit has been the very reverse of this. There they commit the
whole to the mercy of untried speculations; they
abandon the dearest interests of the public to,those
loose theories to which none of them would choose
to trust the slightest of his private concerns. They
make this difference, because in their desire of obtaining and securing power they are thoroughly in
earnest; there they travel in the beaten road. The
public interests, because about them they have no
real solicitude, they abandon wholly to chance: I
say to chance2 because their schemes have nothing
in experience to prove their tendency beneficial.
We must always see with a pity not unmixed with
respect the errors of those who are timid and doubtftil of themselves with regard to points wherein the
happiness of mankind is concerned. But in these
gentlemen there is nothing of the tender parental
solicitude which fears to cut up the infant for the
sake of an experiment. In the vastness of their
promises and the confidence of their predictions they
far outdo all the boasting of empirics. The arrogance of their pretensions in a manner provokes
and challenges us to an inquiry into their foundation.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 453
I am convinced that there are men of considerable
parts among the popular leaders in the National Assembly. Some of them display eloquence in their speeches and their writings. This cannot be without powerful and cultivated talents. But eloquence
may exist without a proportionable degree of wisdom.
When I speak of ability, I am obliged to distinguish.
What they have done towards the support of their
system bespeaks no ordinary men. In the system
itself, taken as the scheme of a republic constructed for procuring the prosperity and security of the citizen, and for promoting the strength and grandeur of the state, I confess myself unable to find out anything which displays, in a single instance, the
work of a comprehensive and disposing mind, or even
the provisions of a vulgar prudence. Their purpose
everywhere seems to have been to evade and slip
aside from difflculty. This it has been the glory of
the great masters in all the arts to confront, and to
overcome, - and when they had overcome the first
difficulty, to turn it into an instrument for new conquests over new difficulties: thus to enable them to extend the empire of their science, and even to push
forward, beyond the reach of their original thoughts,
the landmarks of the human understanding itself.
Difficulty is a severe instructor, set over us by the
supreme ordinance of a parental Guardian and Legislator, who knows us better than we know ourselves, as He loves us better too. Pater ipse colendi haud
facilem esse viam voluit. He that wrestles with us
strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our
antagonist is our helper. This amicable conflict with
difficulty obliges us to an intimate acquaintance with
our object, and compels us to consider it in all its re
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lations. It will not suffer us to be superficial. It is
the want of nerves of understanding for such a task,
it is the degenerate fondness for tricking short-cuts
and little fallacious facilities, that has in so many
parts of the world created governments with arbitrary powers. They have created the late arbitrary
monarchy of France. They have created the arbitrary republic of Paris. With them defects in wisdom are to be supplied by the pl! Qe)itude of force.
They get nothing by it. Commencing their labors
on a principle of sloth, they have the common fortune of slothful men. The difficulties, which they
rather had eluded than escaped, meet them again in
their course; they multiply and thicken on them;
they are involved, through a labyrinth of confused
detail, in an industry without limit and without direction; and in conclusion, the whole of their work
becomes feeble, vicious, and insecure.
It is this inability to wrestle with difficulty which
has obliged the arbitrary Assemnbly of France to commence their schemes of reform with abolition and
total destrnction. * But is it in destroying and pulling down that skill is displayed? Your mob can do
* A leading member of the Assembly, M. Rabaut de St. ttienne,
has expressed the principle of all their proceedings as clearly as possible; nothing can be more simple: --" Tous les etablissemens en France
couronnent le malheuLr du peuple: pour le rendre heureux, il faut le renouveler, changer ses idees, changer ses loix, changer ses mceurs,. . . . chanqer les hommes, changer les choses, changer les mots,. . . . tout detruire; out, tout detruire; puisqte tout est i recreer. " --This gentleman was
chosen president in an assembly not sitting at Quinze-Vingt or the
Petites Maisons, and composed of persons giving themselves out to be
rational beings; but neither his ideas, language, or conduct differ in
the smallest degree from the discourses, opinions, and actions of those,
within and without the Assembly, who direct the operations of the
machine now at work in France.
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this as well at least as your assemblies. The shallowest understanding, the rudest hand, is more than
equal to that task. Rage and frenzy will pull down
more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation,
and foresight can build up in a hundred years. The
errors and defects of old establishments are visible
and palpable. It calls for little ability to point them
out; and where absolute power is given, it requires
but a word wholly to abolish the vice and the establishment together. The same lazy, but restless disposition, which loves sloth and hates quiet, directs these politicians, when they come to work for supplying the
place of what they have destroyed. To make everything the reverse of what they have seen is quite as
easy as to destroy. No difficulties occur in what has
never been tried. Criticism is almost baffled in discovering the defects of what has not existed; and
eager enthusiasm and cheating hope have all the
wide field of imagination, in which they may expatiate with little or no opposition.
At once to preserve and to reform is quite another
thing. When the useful parts of an old establishinent are kept, and what is superadded is to be fitted
to what is retained, a vigorous mind, steady, persevering attention, various powers of comparison and
combination, and the resources of an understanding
fruitful in expedients are to be exercised; they are
to be exercised in a continued conflict with the combined force of opposite vices, with the obstinacy that
rejects all improvement, and the levity that is fatigued and disgusted with everything of which it is in
possession. But you may object,-"A process of this
kind is slow. It is not fit for an Assembly which
glories in performing in a few months the work of
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ages. Such a mode of reforming, possibly, might
take up many years. " Without question it might;
and it ought. It is one of the excellences of a method in which time is amongst the assistants, that its
operation is slow, and in some cases almost imperceptible. If circumspection and caution are a part of
wisdom, when we work only upon inanimate matter,
surely they become a part of duty too, when the subject of our demolition and construction is not brick
and timber, but sentient beings, by the sudden alteration of whose state, condition, and habits, multitudes may be rendered miserable. But it seems as if it were the prevalent opinion in Paris, that an unfeeling heart and an undoubting confidence are the
sole qualifications for a perfect legislator. Far different are my ideas of that high office. The true lawgiver ought to have a heart full of sensibility. He ought to love and respect his kind, and to fear himself. It may be allowed to his temperament to catch
his ultimate object with an intuitive glance; but his
movements towards it ought to be deliberate. Political arrangement, as it is a work for social ends, is to
be only wrought by social means. There mind must
conspire with mind.
Time is required to produce
that union of minds which alone can produce all the
good we aim at. Our patience will achieve more
than our force. If I might venture to appeal to what
is so much out of fashion in Paris, - I mean to experience, -- I should tell you, that in my course I have
known, and, according to my measure, have coiperated with great men; and I have never yet seen any
plan which has not been mended by the observations
of those who were much inferior in understanding to
the person who took the lead in the business. By a
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slow, but well-sustained progress, the effect of each
step is watched; the good or ill success of the first
gives light to us in the second; and so, from light
to light, we are conducted with safety through the
whole series. We see that the parts of the system
do not clash. The evils latent in the most promising
contrivances are provided for as they arise. One advantage is as little as possible sacrificed to another.
We compensate, we reconcile, we balance. We are
enabled to unite into a conet whole the various
anomalies and contending principles that are found
in the minds and affairs of men. From hence arises,
not an excellence in simplicity, but one far superior,
an excellence in composition. Where the great interests of mankind are concerned through a long succession of generations, that succession ought to be admitted into some share in the councils which are
so deeply to affect them. If justice requires this, the
work itself requires the aid of more minds than one
age can furnish. It is from this view of things that
the best legislators have been often satisfied with the
establishment of some sure, solid, and ruling principle in government, - a power like that which some
of the philosophers have called a plastic Nature; and
having fixed the principle, they have left it afterwards
to its own operation.
To proceed in this manner, that is, to proceed with
a presiding principle and a prolific energy, is with
me the criterion of profound wisdom. What your
politicians think the marks of a bold, hardy genius
are only proofs of a deplorable want of ability. By
their violent haste, and their defiance of the process
of Nature, they are delivered over blindly to every
projector and adventurer, to every alchemist and em
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piric. They despair of turning to account anything
that is common. Diet is nothing in their system of
remedy. The worst of it is, that this their despair
of curing common distempers by regular methods
arises not only from defect of comprehension, but, I
fear, from some malignity of disposition. Your legislators seem to have taken their opinions of all professions, ranks, and offices from the declamations and buffooneries of satirists, -- who would themselves be
astonished, if they were held to the letter of their own
descriptions. By listening only to these, your leaders regard all things only on the side of their vices
and faults, and view those vices and faults under
every color of exaggeration. It is undoubtedly true,
though it may seem paradoxical, -- but, in general,
those who are habitually employed in finding and
displaying faults are unqualified for the work of reformation; because their minds are not only unfurnished with patterns of the fair and good, but by habit they come to take no delight in the contemplation of
those things. By hating vices too much, they come
to love men too little. It is therefore not wonderful
that they should be indisposed and unable to serve
them. From hence arises the complexional disposition of some of your guides to pull everything in
pieces. At this malicious game they display the
whole of their quadrimanous activity. As to the
rest, the paradoxes of eloquent writers, brought forth
purely as a sport of fancy, to try their talents, to
rouse attention, and excite surprise, are taken up by
these gentlemen, not in the spirit of the original authors, as means of cultivating their taste and improving their style: these paradoxes become with them serious grounds of action, upon which they proceed in
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regulating the most important concerns of the state.
Cicero ludicrously describes Cato as endeavoring to
act in the commonwealth upon the school paradoxes
which exercised the wits of the junior students in the
Stoic philosophy. If this was true of Cato, these gentlemen copy after him in the manner of some persons
who lived about his time, -pede nudo Catonem. Mr.
flume told me that he had from Rousseau himself
the secret of his principles of composition. That
acute, though eccenltric observer, had perceived, that,
to strike and interest the public, the marvellous must
be produced; that the marvellous of the heathen mythology had long since lost its effects; that giants,
magicians, fairies, and heroes of romance, which succeeded, had exhausted the portion of credulity which
belonged to their age; that now nothing was left to
a writer but that species of the marvellous, which
might still be produced, and with as great an effect
as ever, though in another way, -that is, the marvellous in life, in manners, in characters, and in extraordinary situations, giving rise to new and unlooked-for strokes in politics and morals. I believe, that, were
Rousseau alive, and in one of his lucid intervals, he
would be shocked at the practical frenzy of his scholars, who in their paradoxes are servile imitators, and
even in their incredulity discover an implicit faith.
Men who undertake considerable things, even in a
regular way, ought to give us ground to presume
ability. But the physician of the state, who, not satisfied with the cure of distempers, undertakes to
regenerate constitutions, ought to show uncommon
powers. Some very unusual appearances of wisdom
ought to display themselves on the face of the designs
of those who appeal to no practice and who copy
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after no model. Has any such been manifested? I
shall take a view (it shall for the subject be a very
short one) of what the Assembly has done, with regard, first, to the constitution of the legislature; in
the neyt place, to that of the executive power; then
to that of the judicature; afterwards to the model of
the army; and conclude with the system of finance:
to see whether we can discover in any part of their
schemes the portentous ability which may justify
these bold undertakers in the superiority which they
assume over mankind.
It is in the model of the sovereign and presiding
part of this new republic that we should expect their
grand display. Here they were to prove their title to
their proud demands. For the plan itself at large,
and for the reasons on which it is grounded, I refer to
the journals of the Assembly of the 29th of September, 1789, and to the subsequent proceedings which have made any alterations in the plan. So far as in
a matter somewhat confused I can see light, the system remains substantially as it has been originally framed. My few remarks will be such as regard its
spirit, its tendency, and its fitness for framing a popular commonwealth, which they profess theirs to be, suited to the ends for which any commonwealth, and
particularly such a commonwealth, is made. At the
same time I mean to consider its consistency with
itself and its own principles.
Old establishments are tried by their effects. If
the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful,
we presume the rest. We conclude that to be good
from whence good is derived. In old establishments
various correctives have been found for their aberrations from theory. Indeed, they are the results of va
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rious necessities and expediences. They are not often constructed after any theory: theories are rather
drawn from them. In them we often see the end
best obtained, where the means seem not perfectly
reconcilable to what we may fancy was the original
scheme. The means taught by experience may be
better suited to political ends than those contrived
in the original project. They again react upon the
primitive constitution, and sometimes improve the design itself, from which they seem to have departed.
I think all this might be curiously exemplified in the
British Constitution. At worst, the errors and deviations of every kind in reckoning are found and computed, and the ship proceeds in her course. This
is the case of old establishments; but in a new and
merely theoretic system, it is expected that every
contrivance shall appear, on the face of it, to answer
its ends, especially where the projectors are no way
embarrassed with an endeavor to accommodate the
new building to an old one, either in the walls or
on the foundations.
The French builders, clearing away as mere rubbish whatever they found, and, like their ornamental
gardeners, forming everything into an exact level,
propose to rest the whole local and general legislature on three bases of three different kinds, - one geometrical, one arithmetical, and the third financial; the first of which they call the basis of territory; the
second, the basis of population; and the third, the
basis of contribution. For the accomplishment of the
first of these purposes, they divide the area of their
country into eighty-three pieces, regularly square, of
eighteen leagues by eighteen. These large divisions
are called Departments. These they portion, proceed
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ing by square measurement, into seventeen hundred
and twenty districts, called Communes. These again
they subdivide, still proceeding by square measurement, into smaller districts, called Cantons, making in all 6,400.
At first view this geometrical basis of theirs presents not much to admire or to blame. It calls for
no great legislative talents. Nothing more than -an
accurate land-surveyor, with his chain, sight, and
theodolite, is requisite for such a plan as this. In
the old divisions of the country, various accidents
at times, and the ebb and flow of various properties
and jurisdictions, settled their bounds. These bounds
were not made upon any fixed system, undoubtedly.
They were subject to some inconveniences; but they
were inconveniences for which use had found remedies. and habit had supplied accommodation and patience. In this new pavement of square within
square, and this organization and semi-organization,
made on the system of Empedocles and Buffon, and
not upon any politic principle, it is impossible that
innumerable local inconveniences, to which men are
not habituated, must not arise. But these I pass
over, because it requires an accurate knowledge of
the country, which I do not possess, to specify them.
When these state surveyors came to take a view of
their work of measurement, they soon found that in
politics the most fallacious of all things was geometrical demonstration. They had then recourse to another basis (or rather buttress) to support the
building, which tottered on that false foundation. It
was evident that the goodness of the soil, the number of the people, their wealth, and the largeness of their contribution, made such infinite variations be
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tween square and square as to render mensuration a
ridiculous standard of power in the commonwealth,
and equality in geometry the most unequal of all
measures in the distribution of men. However, they
could not give it up, - but, dividing their political
and civil representation into three parts, they allotted
one of those parts to the square measurement, without a single fact or calculation to ascertain whether
this territorial proportion of representation was fairly
assigned, and ought upon any principle really to be a
third. Having, however, given to geometry this portion, (of a third for her dower,) out of compliment, I
suppose, to that sublime science, they left the other
two to be scuffled for between the other parts, population and contribution.
When they came to provide for population, they
were not able to proceed quite so smoothly as they
had done in the field of their geometry. Here their
arithmetic came to bear upon their juridical metaphysics. Had they stuck to their metaphysic principles, the arithmetical process would be simple indeed. Men, with them, are strictly equal, and are entitled to
equal rights in their own government. Each head,
on this system, would have its vote, and every man
would vote directly for the person who was to represent him in the legislature. " But soft, -by regular degrees, not yet. " This metaphysic principle,
to which law, custom, usage, policy, reason, were
to yield, is to yield itself to their pleasure. There
must be many degrees, and some stages, before the
representative can come in contact with his constituent. Indeed, as we shall soon see, these two persons are to have no sort of communion with each other. First, the voters in the Canton, who compose
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what they call primary assemblies, are to have a qualification. What! a qualification on the indefeasible
rights of men? Yes; but it shall be a very small
qualification. Our injustice shall be very little oppressive: only the local valuation of three days' labor paid to the public. Why, this is not much, I readily admit, for anything but the utter subversion
of your equalizing principle. As a qualification it
might as well be let alone; for it answers no one pur-,pose for which qualifications are established; and, on
your ideas, it excludes from a vote the man of all
others whose natural equality stands the most in
need of protection and defence: I mean the man who
has nothing else but his natural equality to guard
him. You order him to buy the right which you
before told him Nature had given to him gratuitously
at his birth, and of which no authority on earth could
lawfully deprive him. With regard to the person
who cannot come up to your market, a tyrannous
aristocracy, as against him, is established at the very
outset, by you who pretend to be its sworn foe.
The gradation proceeds. These primary assemblies
of the Canton elect deputies to the Commune, - one for
every two hundred qualified inhabitants. Here is the
first medium put between the primary elector and the
representative legislator; and here a new turnpike
is fixed for taxing the rights of men with a second
qualification: for none cau be elected into the Commune who does not pay the amount of ten days' labor.
Nor have we yet done. There is still to be another
gradation. * These Communes, chosen by the Canton,
* The Assembly, in executing the plan of their committee, made
some alterations. They have struck out one stage in these gradations; this removes a part of the objection; but the main objection,
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choose to the Department; and the deputies of the
Department choose their deputies to the National
Assembly. Here is a third barrier of a senseless
qualification. Every deputy to the National Assembly must pay, in direct contribution, to the value of
a mark of silver. Of all these qualifying barriers we
must think alike: that they are impotent to secure
independence, strong only to destroy the rights of
men.
In all this process, which in its fundamental elements affects to consider only population, upon a principle of natural right, there is a manifest attention
to property, - which, however just and reasonable on
other schemes, is on theirs perfectly unsupportable.
When they come to their third basis, that of Con-r
tribution, we find that they have more completely lost
sight of the rights of men. This last basis rests entirely on property. A principle totally different from,
the equality of men, and utterly irreconcilable to it,
is thereby admitted: but no sooner is this principle
admitted than (as usual) it is subverted; and it is
not subverted (as we shall presently see) to approximate the inequality of riches to the level of Nature.
The additional share in the third portion of representation (a portion reserved exclusively for the
higher contribution) is made to regard the district
only, and not the individuals in it who pay. It is
easy to perceive, by the course of their reasonings,
how much they were embarrassed by their contranamely, that in their scheme the first constituent voter has no connection with the representative legislator, remains in all its force. There are other alterations, some possibly for the better, some certainly for the worse: but to the author the merit or demerit of these
smaller alterations appears to be of no moment, where the scheme
itself is fundamentally vicious and absurd.
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dictory ideas of the rights of men and the privileges of riches. The Committee of Constitution do
as good as admit that they are wholly irreconcilable.
"The relation with regard to the contributions is
without doubt null, (say they,) when the question is
on the balance of the political rights as between individual and individual; without which personal equality would be destroyed, and an aristocracy of the rich would be established. But this inconvenience entirely disappears, when the proportional relation of
the contribution is only considered in the great masses, and is solely between province and province; it
serves in that case only to form a just reciprocal pro
portion between the cities, without affecting the personal rights of the citizens. "
Here the principle of contribution, as taken between
man and man, is reprobated as Mull, and destructive
to equality, - and as pernicious, too, because it leads
to the establishment of an aristocracy of the rich.
However, it must not be abandoned. And the way
of getting rid of the difficulty is to establish the inequality as between department and department, leaving all the individuals in each department upon an exact par. Observe, that this parity between individuals had been before destroyed, when the qualifications within the departments were settled; nor does
it seem a matter of great importance whether the
equality of men be injured by masses or individually.
An individual is not of the same importance in a mass
represented by a few as in a mass represented by
many. It would be too much to tell a man jealous
of his equality, that the elector has the same franchise who votes for three members as he who votes
for ten.
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Now take it in the other point of view, and let us
suppose their principle of representation according to
contribution, that is according to riches, to be well
imagined, and to be a necessary basis for their republic. In this their third basis they assume that riches
ought to be respected, and that justice and policy require that they should entitle men, in some mode or
other, to a larger share in the administration of public affairs; it is now to be seen how the Assembly
provides for the preeminence, or even for the security of the rich, by conferring, in virtue of their opulence, that larger measure of power to their district
which is denied to- them personally. I readily admit
(indeed, I should lay it down as a fundamental principle) that in a republican government, which has a
democratic basis, the rich do require an additional
security above what is necessary to them in monarchies. They are subject to envy, and through envy
to oppression. On the present scheme it is impossible to divine what advantage they derive from the
aristocratic preference upon which the unequal representation of the masses is founded. The rich cannot feel it, either as a support to dignity or as security to fortune: for the aristocratic mass is generated from purely democratic principles; and the prevalence given to it in the general representation
has no sort of reference to or connection with the
persons upon account of whose property this superiority of the mass is established. If the contrivers of
this scheme meant any sort of favor to the rich, in
consequence of their contribution, they ought to have
conferred the privilege either on the individual rich,
or on some class formed of rich persons (as historians
represent Servius Tullius to have done in the early
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constitution of Rome); because the contest between
the rich and the poor is not a struggle between corporation and corporation, but a contest between men
and men, -a competition, not between districts, but
between descriptions. It would answer its purpose
better, if the scheme were inverted: that the votes of
the masses were rendered equal, and that the votes
within each mass were proportioned to property.
Let us suppose one man in a district (it is an easy
supposition) to contribute as much as a hundred of
his neighbors. Against these he has but one vote.
If there were but one representative for the mass,
his poor neighbors would outvote him by an hundred
to one for that single representative. Bad enough!
But amends are to be made him. How? The district, in virtue of his wealth, is to choose, say ten
members instead of one: that is to say, by paying a
very large contribution he has the happiness of being
outvoted, an hundred to one, by the poor, for ten representatives, instead of being outvoted exactly in the
same proportion for a single member. In truth, instead of benefiting by this superior quantity of representation, the rich man is subjected to an additional hardship. The increase of representation within his
province sets up nine persons more, and as many
more than nine as there may be democratic candidates, to cabal and intrigue and to flatter the people
at his expense and to his oppression. An interest is
by this means held out to multitudes of the inferior
sort, in obtaining a salary of eighteen livres a day,
(to them a vast object,) besides the pleasure of a residence in Paris, and their share in the government of
the kingdom. The more the objects of ambition are
multiplied and become democratic, just in that proportion the rich are endangered.
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Thus it must fare between the poor and the rich in
the province deemed aristocratic, which in its internal relation is the very reverse of that character.