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partment and department, leaving all the indivi duals in each department upon an exact par. Obferve, that this parity between individuals had been before destroyed when the qualifications within the departments were settled; nor does it seem a matter of great importance whether the equality of men be injured by masses or individually. An individual is not of the fame importance in a mass represented by a few, as in a mass reprefented by many. It would be too much to tell a man jealous of his equality, that the elector has the fame franchise who votes for three members as he who votes for ten.

Now take it in the other point of view, and let us suppose their principle of representation accord. ing to contribution, that is according to riches, to be well imagined, and to be a necessary basis for their republick. In this their third basis they af sume, that riches ought to be respected, and that justice and policy require that they should entitle men, in fome mode or other, to a larger share in the administration of publick affairs; it is now to be seen how the assembly provides for the preeminence, or even for the security of the rich, by conferring, in virtue of their opulence, that larger measure of power to their district which is denied to them perfonally. I readily admit (indeed I should lay it down as a fundamental principle) that in a republican government, which has a democratick mocratick basis, the rich do require an additional security above what is neceffary to them in monarchies. They are subject to envy, and through envy to oppreffion. On the present scheme it is impoffible to divine what advantage they derive from the aristocratick preference upon which the unequal representation of the masses is founded. The rich cannot feel it, either as a support to dig. nity, or as security to fortune: for the aristocratick mass is generated from purely democratick principles; and the prevalence given to it in the general representation has no fort of reference to, or connection with, the perfons, upon account of whose property this fuperiority of the mass is established. If the contrivers of this scheme meant any fort of favour to the rich, in consequence of their contribution, they ought to have conferred the privilege either on the individual rich, or on fome class formed of rich persons (as hiftorians represent Ser vius Tullius to have done in the early conftitution of Rome); because the contest between the rich and the poor is not a struggle between corpoгation and corporation, but a contest between men and men; a competition not between districts, but between descriptions. It would answer its purpose better if the scheme were inverted; that the votes of the masses were rendered equal; and that the votes within each mass were proportioned to property.

Let

Let us suppose one man in a district (it is an easy supposition) to contribute as much as an hundred of his neighbours. Against these he has but one vote. If there were but one representative for the mass, his poor neighbours would outvote him by an hundred to one for that single reprefentative. Bad enough. But amends are to be made him. How? The district, in virtue of his wealth, is to choose, say ten members instead of one: that is to say, by paying a very large contribution he has the happiness of being outvoted, an hundred to one, by the poor, for ten reprefentatives, instead of being outvoted exactly in the same proportion for a fingle member. In truth, instead of benefiting by this fuperiour quantity of reprefentation, the rich man is subjected to an additional hardship. The increase of representation within his province fets up nine persons more, and as many more than nine as there may be democratick candidates, to cabal and intrigue, and to flatter the people at his expence and to his oppreffion. An interest is by this means held out to multitudes of the inferiour fort, in obtaining a falary of eighteen livres a day (to them a vast object) befides the pleasure of a refidence in Paris, and their share in the government of the kingdom. The more the objects of ambition are multiplied and become democratick, just in that proportion the rich are endangered.

Thus

Thus it must fare between the poor and the tich in the province deemed aristocratick, which in its internal relation is the very reverse of that character. In its external relation, that is, in its relation to the other provinces, I cannot see how the unequal representation, which is given to masses on account of wealth, becomes the means of preferving the equipoise and the tranquillity of the commonwealth. For if it be one of the objects to fecure the weak from being crushed by the strong (as in all society undoubtedly it is) how are the smaller and poorer of these masses to be faved from the tyranny of the more wealthy? Is it by adding to the wealthy further and more systematical means of oppressing them? When we come to a balance of representation between corporate bodies, provincial interests, emulations, and jealoufies, are full as likely to arise among them as among individuals; and their divisions are likely to produce a much hotter spirit of dif fention, and fomething leading much more nearly

to a war.

I fee that these aristocratick masses are made upon what is called the principle of direct contri bution. Nothing can be a more unequal standard than this. The indirect contribution, that which arifes from duties on consumption, is in truth a better standard, and follows and discovers wealth more naturally than this of direct contribution. VOL. V.

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It

It is difficult indeed to fix a standard of local preference on account of the one, or of the other, or of both, because some provinces may pay the more of either or of both, on account of causes not intrinfick, but originating from those very districts over whom they have obtained a preference in consequence of their oftenfible contribution. If the masses were independent fovereign bodies, who were to provide for a federative treafury by distinct contingents, and that the revenue had not (as it has) many impositions running through the whole, which affect men individually, and not corporately, and which, by their nature, confound all territorial limits, something might be faid for the basis of contribution as founded on masses. But of all things, this representation, to be measured by contribution, is the most difficult to fettle upon principles of equity in a country, which confiders its districts as members of a whole. For a great city, such as Bourdeaux or Paris, appears to pay a vast body of duties, almost out of all affignable proportion to other places, and its mass is confidered accordingly. But are these cities the true contributors in that proportion? No. The confumers of the commodities imported into Bourdeaux, who are scattered through all France, pay the import duties of Bourdeaux. The produce bof the vintage in Guienne and Languedoc give to that city the

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