Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v5.djvu/607

1787.] the laws, which encourage industry by securing the enjoyment of its fruits,—that industry from which property results, and that enjoyment which consists, not merely in its immediate use, but in its posthumous destination to objects of choice and of kindred or affection.

In a just and a free government, therefore, the rights both of property and of persons ought to be effectually guarded. Will the former be so in cage of a universal and equal suffrage? Will the latter be so in case of a suffrage confined to the holders of property?

As the holders of property have at stake all the other rights common to those without property, they may be the more restrained from infringing, as well as the less tempted to infringe, the rights of the latter. It is nevertheless certain that there are various ways in which the rich may oppress the poor; in which property may oppress liberty; and that the world is filled with examples. It is necessary that the poor should have a defence against the danger.

On the other hand, the danger to the holders of property cannot be disguised, if they be undefended against a majority without property. Bodies of men are not less swayed by interest than individuals, and are less controlled by the dread of reproach and the other motives felt by individuals. Hence the liability of the rights of property, and of the impartiality of laws affecting it, to be violated by legislative majorities having an interest, real or supposed, in the injustice: hence agrarian laws, and other levelling schemes: hence the cancelling or evading of debts, and other violations of contracts. We must not shut our eyes to the nature of man, nor to the light of experience. Who would rely on a fair decision from three individuals, if two had an interest in the case opposed to the rights of the third? Make the number as great as you please, the impartiality will not be increased, nor any further security against injustice be obtained, than what may result from the greater difficulty of uniting the wills of a greater number. In all governments there is a power which is capable of oppressive exercise. In monarchies and aristocracies, oppression proceeds from a want of sympathy and responsibility in the government towards the people. In popular governments, the danger lies in an undue sympathy among individuals composing a majority, and a want of responsibility in the majority to the minority. The characteristic excellence of the political system of the United States arises from a distribution and organization of its powers, which, at the same time that they secure the dependence of the government on the will of the nation, provide better guards than are found in any other popular government against interested combinations of a majority against the rights of a minority.

The United States have a precious advantage, also, in the actual distribution of property, particularly the landed property, and in the universal hope of acquiring property. This latter peculiarity is among the happiest contrasts' in their situation to that of the old world, where no anticipated change in this respect can generally inspire a like sympathy with the rights of properly. There may be at present a majority of the nation who are every freeholders, or the heirs or aspirants to freeholds, and the day may not be very near when such will cease to make Up a majority of the community. But they cannot always so continue. With every admissible subdivision of the arable lands, a populousness not greater than that of England or France will reduce the holders to a minority. And whenever the majority shall be without landed or other equivalent property, and without the means or hope of acquiring it, what is to secure the rights of property against the danger from an equality and universality of suffrage, vesting complete power over property in hands without a share in it—not to speak of a danger in the mean time from a dependence of an increasing number on the wealth of a few? In other countries this dependence results—in some from the relations between landlords and tenants, in others both from that source and from the relations between wealthy capitalists and indigent laborers. In the United States, the occurrence must happen from the last source; from the connection between the great capitalists in manufactures and commerce, and the numbers employed by them. Nor will accumulations of capital for a certain time be precluded by our laws of descent and of distribution; such being the enterprise inspired by free institutions, that great wealth in the hands of individuals and associations may not be unfrequent. But it may be observed, that the opportunities may be diminished, and the permanency defeated, by the equalizing tendency of our laws.

No free country has ever been without parties, which are a natural offspring of freedom. An obvious and permanent division of every people is into the owners of the soil and the other inhabitants. In a certain sense, the country may be said to belong to the former. If each landholder has an exclusive property in his share, the body of landholders have an exclusive property in the whole. As the soil becomes subdivided, and actually cultivated by the owners, this view of the subject derives force from the principle of natural law which vests in individuals an exclusive right to the portions of ground with which they have incorporated their labor and improvements. Whatever may be the rights of others, derived from their birth in the country, from their interest in the highways and other tracts left open for common use, as well as in the