Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/565

Rh aristocracy. It will require one-tliird of the lands of the Union., to give a landed aristocracy Weight or power sufficient to answer its purpose. Suppose also, that the zeal of landed men in favour of a landed aristocracy, siiould induce them to part' willingly with one-third of their lands to obtain it, and consider what retribution would be made for the sacrifice.

The late aristocratieal order of France was a landed one. It derived its power from possessing a third of the lands. And it used this power to shelter its own lands from taxation, and to shift the publick buidens from its own slioulders, upon those of the rest of (he people. Even a landed aristocracy must possess the essential quality of feeding upon all except itself. Besides, every landholder, in nurturing the errour that his interest leans towards a landed aristocracy, has many computations to make; such as, whether it is likely that all considerable landholders will be made lords; or in case of a selection of two or three hundred individuals to constitute a noble landed order, whether it is likely that he will be one. Whether such a body can be anything but the infamous instrument of a tyrant, unless it is endowed with sufficient property to give it weight; and whether he is willing to give up one-third of his lands for that purpose.

If it would be improvident in the lauded interest of the United States, to part with one-third only of its lands, to gain the benefit of an aristocracy capable of some agrarian sympathy, what must be the foresight of mortgaging the whole, to rear up an aristocracy of stock corruption and patronage, capable of none? England answers t!ie question. But undeterred by her cries to forbear, the landed interest of the United States, with exclusive skill or folly, is moulding heavy ordnance to play upon itself, and whittling down its own arms into pocket pistols. Perpetuity and primogeniture are its heaviest artillery against stock monopoly. With these, the English landed interest has fallen before it; and the American, without either, provokes the combat.