*

government, legislation is now "made easy," and coustitutions may be prepared at the shortest notice for the use of any and every people who may choose to throw off the yoke of authority, and desire to establish a free and liberal system, calculated at once to promote "the largest liberty," and secure the greatest happiness of the greatest number." Nevertheless, his moderate reforms and judicious modifications of the ancient constitution and then existing order of things, though made more than two thousand years ago, formed an era, not only in the history of his country, but of the whole world-so that, as the eloquent writer whom we have just quoted truly states,† his legislation "while it has been the origin of all subsequent law, while adopted by the Romans, it makes it, at this day, the universal spirit which animates the codes and constitutions of Europe, was moulded to the habits, the manners and the condition of the people whom it was intended to enlighten, to harmonize, and to guide.

Yet "his innovations in the mere forms of the ancient constitution do not appear to have been considerble, he rather added than destroyed." The leading features of the institutions founded by Solon were, that the four ancient tribes into which the community were divided were retained. "At the age of eighteen, each citizen was liable to military duty; at the age of twenty he attained his majority and was entitled to vote in the popular assembly, and to all the rights of citizenship. Every free citizen, at the age of twenty, was thus admitted to a vote in the legislature. But the possessions of a very considerable estate was necessary to the attainment of the higher offices. Thus, while the people exercise universal suffrage in voting for certain offices, the choice of candidates was confined to an oligarchy. Four distinct ranks were acknowledged; not according, as hitherto, to hereditary descent, but the possession of property. Those whose incomes yielded 500

• His innovations, (Solon's) in the mere forms of the ancient constitution, do not appear to have been considerable, he rather added than destroyed.-Bulwer's. Fall of Athens, p. 192.

This anti-revolutionary moderation on the part of the Athenian sage has met with no imitators, as we need scarcely say, in modern times: nothing short of a rasa tabula, or entire obliteration of all existing forms, will afford room for the theories and reforms of the law-givers of the present day.

†P. 192.

measures in any commodity, dry or liquid, were placed in the first rank, &c., &c. The second class, termed hippeis, knights or horsemen, was composed of those whose estates yielded 300 measures. Each man belonging to it was obliged to keep a horse for the public service, &c. The third class was composed of those possessing 200 measures, &c. The fourth, the most numerous class, comprehended under the name of thetes, the bulk of the nonenslaved working population, whose property fell short of the required qualifications. The members of this

class were excluded from all office; unless, as they voted in the popular assembly, they may be said to have a share in the legislation and to exercise, in extraordinary causes, judicial authority. At the same time no hereditary barrier excluded them from the hopes so dear to human inspiration. He had only to acquire the necessary fortune, in order to enjoy the privileges of his superiors. And accordingly we find, by an inscription on the Acropolis, recorded in Pollux, that an Anthemion of the lowest class was suddenly raised to the rank of knight. We perceive, from these divisions of ranks, that the main principle of Solon's constitution was founded, not upon birth but wealth. He instituted what was called a timocracy, viz. an aristocracy of property, based upon democratic institutions of popular jurisdiction, election and appeal. Conformably to the principles which pervade all States that make property the qualification for office, to property the general taxation was apportioned,* and this upon a graduated scale, severe

By our more enlightened legislators the opposite principle has been introduced, the want of this qualifica ion being made the chief requisite for office, those who are most in need of its emoluments being considered as having the most claims to it. This is the chief source of the office-secking mania, which now forms so great a public evil and so darkly disgraces the country. To carry out this principle to its fullest extent, or with more regard to consistency, would be the readiest mode of diminishing the evil; so that no one whose hereditary revenue, or whose income from his profession or trade, amounts to more than the emoluments of the office which he seeks, should be held eligible to it, as it is but too common for persons to leave even the most thriving pursuits in order to attain public employment, or a government sinecure. As the war of the revolution was waged in opposition to the principle of taxation without representation, the present system of disposing of public office, and the introduction of universal suffrage, by which we have representation without taxation, forms a specimen of democratic consistency, which we presume we may be allowed to make a passing comment on, as we have no intention, in doing so, to question the wisdom or general infallibility of the majority.

to the first class and completely exonorating the lowest. The ranks of the citizens thus established, the constitution acknowledged three great branches of the legislature." The author here goes into details respecting the organization and powers of the different branches of the government, which thus formed the mere administrative part of the constitution, or a political frame-work, super-imposed on the living supports, as they may be termed, of the different ranks and orders into which the community was divided-in which we deem it unnecessary to follow him for the present.

The Athenian law-giver never for a moment confounded interest with right, and therefore based his institutions upon the two main pillars, of a representation, first of property, and next, of classes, so that though the main assembly of the people bore the character of a purely democratic body, it was composed in reality of a delegation from the different orders or tribes into which the citizens were divided. As respects the innovations and improvements in legislation introduced by Numa and Servius Tullius, which laid the foundation of Roman liberty, it will be equally seen that property, and not numbers, formed the basis of the institutions devised by those wise law-givers and early benefactors of the human race. It is stated in the Compendium of Roman History to which we have already referred, namely, that compiled from the learned works and comprising the researches of Wachsmuth, Schlosser and Heeren, that "the government of Servius Tullius was, from beginning to end, a sort of revolution. The organic changes ascribed to him cannot be conceived of as projected under any but republican institutions. At all events, they paved the way for the republic. Servius prepared the way for his innovations by a division of lands and of building ground for the habitations of the poor. His constitution, however, had no resemblance to a pure democracy. Property was adopted as the standard for apportioning the public contributions and franchises."* Niebuhr also says, that by the assignment, (of land to the poor) under Servius, the plebs was established in its character of free and hereditary proprietors." This explains why the patricians,

as is stated in the work we have just quoted from, "were the enemies of Servius, and hated and plotted against him." Yet, as is stated in the same work, "in the enrolment of plebeian knights, as in all the rest of his institutions, it may be affirmed that Servius regarded wealth as of primary importance."* The people, previous to their acquiring the status, which the possession of property thus at last gave them among the other orders of the State, were a mere commonalty,† or disprivileged class, from which the levies for the army were chiefly drawn, and who, while they fought the battles of the country, were not even allowed a share in the public domain, or lands conquered by their prowess and valor.

"A class, however, of simple citizens," as Wachsmuth observes, "in the modern sense of the word, began to show itself at a very early period, but remained during a long time without attaining any share whatever in the public administration." Another source from which the plebs derived influence and power was the circumstance that, though allowed to acquire property, they were not permitted to engage in any other pursuit than agriculture. Niebuhr states that, "in the earlier ages of the republic, the Roman plebs consisted exclusively of landholders and field laborers, and even if any of its members were reduced to poverty and stript of their estates, it still contained no one who earned a livelihood by any other employment-by commerce any more than by handicrafts." It was a

people of this kind who of old fought the battles of liberty with a haughty and powerful aristocracy-a battle which was fought for all mankind. This glorious and successful contest could not have been waged against such odds by a herd of naturalized citizens, or yet by a commonalty voting by the head, or according to their numbers. It will be seen that the law-givers of antiquity, being well apprised that the institution of property forms the heaven-dropt seed

Compen., p. 48, p. 447, vol. i.

"The commonalty of the cities," it is observed by Niebuhr, “had it continued alone, would never have risen out of its obscurity; on the contrary, the destination of the civic tribes, in later times, to receive such citizens as were of servile descent, is to be accounted for from this being their origin. The genuine, noble, great plebs took its rise from the formation of a public domain out of the towns won of the Latins."

+ P. 313, vol. i.

EL

t:

from which the solid-trunked, fruit-bearing, and flowercrowned tree of civilization springs and flourishes, were therefore careful to make its protection their first care and the basis of all their political arrangements, as is apparent in even the most democratic of the constitutions of ancient Greece and Italy.* Where the exercise of the elective franchise does not form a protection to property it indeed ceases to have any real value, except to those whom it arms with the power over the possessions and the means of legislating away the rights of the rich. All true liberty, therefore, is based on the aristocratic principle (if it must be so designa ted) of giving protection to the possessions as well as to the person of the citizen, by placing that protection on his own hands, or by associating the electiv franchise with the qualification of property. This alone can secure that vital right from the abuse to which it is liable, where exercised upon the principle of universal suffrage or of placing liberty above property. If the command, "Thou shalt not steal," be a divine law, any enactment, from whatever source or authority it may proceed, that gives to the poor a political control over the property of the rich, tends to produce, and gives encouragement to, a violation of that law, and has no other sanction than that which mere physical force and a mistaken public opinion may temporarily impart to it for the elective franchise is power, and power, where lodged in irresponsible hands, as it is when conferred upon and exercised by the poor, the ignorant and the destitute, is no less illegal than dangerous, and is ever sure to be abused to the purposes of tyranny and spoliation.

In the distinctions created by property in the different orders and interests which have gradually arisen, and hold each their proper place in the great body of European society, the reformers and legislators in that part of the world may find ready laid to their hands the sure and stable foundations on which to rear more improved systems, which

The legislators of antiquity, with an anxious and provident care, sought to place the security beyond the reach of either contingency or danger, by converting the civil into the political law; a wise policy of which the advantage is seen in the only case in which it is exemplified among ourselves, that of the representation of their slaves, allowed to the Southern States by the constitution. This has alone secured this species of property from the invasive action of congress, and against the interference and designs of the abolitionists of the North.