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HE following principles, being founded in reciprocity, appear perfectly just, and to offer no cause of complaint to any nation:

I. Where a nation imposes high duties on our productions, or prohibits them altogether, it may be proper for us to do the same by theirs; first burdening or ex3. 278. cluding those productions which they bring here, in competition with our own of the same kind, selecting next such manufactures as we take from them in greatest quantity, and which, at the same time, we could the soonest furnish to ourselves, or obtain from other countries; imposing on them duties lighter at first, but heavier and heavier afterwards as other channels of supply open. Such duties having the effect of indirect encouragement to domestic manufactures of the same kind, may induce the manufacturer to come himself into these states, where cheaper subsistence, equal laws, and a vent of his wares, free of duty, may insure him the highest profits from his skill and industry.

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AVE you considered all the consequences of your proposition respecting post roads? I view it as a source of boundless patronage to the executive, jobbing to members of congress and their friends, and a bottomless abyss of public money. You will begin by only appropriating the surplus of the post office reve9. 324. nues; but the other revenues will soon be called to their aid, and it will be a source of eternal scramble among the members, who can get the most money wasted in their State; and they will always get most who are meanest. We have thought, hitherto, that the roads of a State could not so well be administered even by our State legislature as by the magistracy of the county, on the spot. How will they be when a member from New Hampshire is

to mark out a road for Georgia? Does the power to establish post roads, given you by the Constitution, mean that you should MAKE the roads, or only select from those already made those on which there shall be a post? If the term be equivocal (and I really do not think so), which is the safest construction? that which permits a majority of Congress to go to cutting down mountains and bridging rivers, or the other, which if too restricted may be referred to the States for amendment, securing due measures and proportion among us, and providing some means of information to the members of Congress tantamount to that ocular inspection, which, even in our county determinations, the magistrate finds cannot be supplied by other evidence? The fortification of harbors was liable to some objection, but national circumstances furnished color. In this case there is none.

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19. 17.

CHAPTER XIII.

THEORIES OF GOVERNMENT

HE property of this country (France) is absolutely concentrated in a few hands, having revenues of

from half a million guineas a year downward. These employ the flower of the country as servants, some of them having as many as 200 domestics, not laboring. They employ also a great number of manufacturers and tradesmen, and lastly the class of laboring husbandman. But after all there comes the most numerous of all classes, that is the poor who cannot find work. I asked myself what could be the reason so many should be permitted to beg who are willing to work in a country where there is a very considerable proportion of uncultivated lands? These lands are disturbed only for the sake of game. It would seem then that it must be because of the tremendous wealth of the proprietors which puts them above attention to the increase of their revenues by permitting these lands to be labored. I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable, but the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the affections of the human mind. The descent of property of every kind therefore to all the children, or to all the brothers and sisters, or other relations in equal degree, is a politic measure and a practicable one. Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor it is clear that the

laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on. If for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be provided to those excluded from the appropriation. If we do not, the fundamental right to labor the earth returns to the unemployed. It is too soon yet in our country to say that every man who cannot find employment, but who can find uncultivated land, shall be at liberty to cultivate it, paying a moderate rent. But it is not too soon to provide by every possible means that as few as possible shall be without a little portion of land. The small landholders are the most precious part of the State.

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HE aboriginal inhabitants of these countries I have regarded with the commiseration their history inspires. Endowed with the faculties and the rights of men, breathing an ardent love of liberty and independence, and occupying a country, which left them no desire but to be undisturbed, the stream of overflowing 3. 378. population from other regions directed itself on these shores; without power to divert, or habits to contend against, they have been overwhelmed with the current, or driven before it; now reduced within limits too narrow for the hunter's state, humanity enjoins us to teach them agriculture and the domestic arts; to encourage them to that industry which alone can enable them to maintain their place in existence, and to prepare them in time for that state of society which to bodily comforts adds the improvement of the mind and the morals.

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RE there no inconveniences to be thrown into the scale against the advantage expected from a multiplication of numbers by the importation of foreigners? It is for the happiness of those united in society to

harmonize as much as possible in matters which they must of necessity transact together. Civil government 2. 120. being the sole object of forming societies, its administration must be conducted by common consent. Every species of government has its specific principles. Ours are perhaps more peculiar than any other in the universe. It is a composition of the freest principles of the English Constitution, with others derived from natural right and reason. To these nothing can be more opposed than the maxims of absolute monarchies. Yet from such we are to expect the greatest number of emigrants. They will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or, if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange for unbounded licentiousness, passing as is usual from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle if they were to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty. These principles with their language they will transmit to their children. In proportion to their numbers they will share with us the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its directions. Is it not safer

to wait with patience 27 years 3 months longer for the attainment of any degree of population desired or expected? May not our government be more homogeneous, more peaceable, more durable?

T is said that they possess the means of defence, and that we do not. How so, are we not men? Yes, but

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our men are so happy at home that they will not hire themselves to be shot at for a shilling a day. Hence we can have no standing armies for defence, because we have no paupers to furnish the materials. The Greeks and 14. 184. Romans had no standing armies, yet they defended themselves. The Greeks by their laws, and the Romans by the spirit of their people, took care to put