Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/156

 organization was very simple; it was patriarchal in form. And yet with laws that were plain and intelligible, administered by men whose age and character commanded universal reverence, what could be more admirably framed to secure that which is declared to be one of the great ends of our republican government, "to establish justice," than this simple economy of the Hebrew Commonwealth?

But now we come to a point in which it not only equalled, but far surpassed, our American Republic in securing absolute equality. In the Hebrew state not only did all classes enjoy the same liberty, and have the same rights — not only were all equal before the law, having the same claim to justice and protection — but the Hebrew polity aimed to secure among the people a general equality of property and of condition.

On the conquest of Canaan, it was divided into twelve parts, which were assigned by lot to the different tribes. Thus the Hebrew state was a confederacy of twelve small provinces, like the Swiss cantons. The territory of each was then subdivided, so that a portion of land was assigned to every family. This was a military division of the country. A share in the soil might be considered as a reward of every soldier who had fought for the Promised Land. But in the eye of the great Lawgiver, it was designed to have the most important political effects.

First of all, it settled the country. It gave to every man a fixed and permanent home. For forty years the Israelites had lived in a camp. They had contracted the roving habits of all wandering tribes. Now an army was to be transformed into a nation. The cottage was to take the place of the tent, and the pruning-hook of the spear. All this Moses secured by one simple law. Instead of introducing a feudal system, dividing the conquered country to military chiefs, for whom the people should labor as