Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/123

Rh people bcvond his limitation, the odium attached to the epithet "levellers." And we shall endeavour to prove, that the charges of levelism, and rendering property insecure, so repeatedly and profusely urged against republican principles throughout his book, do really recoil upon himself, and adhere to his own system.

The "safety of property" is the very point, by which it is allowed that the reader ought to be determined, in bestowing a preference upon our policy or the English system Our manners do not thirst for blood; it is the thirst of avarice and ambition for wealth and power, that we have to withstand. To understand the question, we ought previously to settle a satisfactory idea of property. Here it is probable that a disagreement will occur, between the disciples of corporation, monopoly and orders, and myself. It is acknowledged, that I do not include under the idea of property, any artificial establishment, which subsists by taking away property; such as hierarchical, kingly, noble, official and corporate possessions, incomes and privileges; and that I consider those possessions as property, which are fairly gained by talents and industry, or are capable of subsisting, without taking property from others by law. If this definition is correct, an invasion of property constitutes the essential quality of Mr. Adams's system. A king, a nobility and a hierarchy, cannot subsist without property, and this property must be taken away in some mode from others. The system requires a balance of property, as the only mode of balancing power; or, to use the epithet applied by Mr. Adams to those who differ from him, property and power must be levelled among three orders, and this level must he kept up, or the system falls into ruin. Therefore the supposed two orders cannot preserve a political existence, without constantly receiving the profits of two thirds of the property in a nation. This requires a regular system for invading private property to sustain a government consisting of balanced orders. A nation must toil like