^1^ Revenue. — Forfeitures. [Ch.XI. Sec. I. this, that all property is derived from society, being one of those civil rights which are conferred upon individuals, in exchange for that degree of natural liberty which every man must sacri- fice when he enters into social communities. If, therefore, a member of any national community violate the fundamental contract of this association, by transgressing the municipal law, he forfeits his right to such privileges as he claims by that contract, and the state may very justly resiune that portion of property, or any part of it, which the laws have before assigned liim. Hence, in every offence of an atrocious kind, the laws of England have exacted a total confiscation of the moveable* or personal estate, and in many cases a perpetual, in others on- ly a teinporary, loss of the offender's immoveables or landed property, and have vested them both in the King, who is the person supposed to be offended, being the one visible magis- tj:ate in whom the majesty of the public resides (a)." In. some instances, the punishment by forfeiture of inherit- ances, is politically necessary to the preservation of the state. It is in the case of high treason, a safeguard with which every well regulated state, whether built on maxims of monarchy or freedom, has ever been provided ; and without which it were liable to perpetual disorder from the desperate sallies of resent- ment, or the daring projects of ambition. Here too, our own constitution preserves its usual excellence ; and, being framed with much wisdom and equity as to the crime of treason, it seems difficult to account for the conduct of those, who, in the parliament of the 7th of Queen Anne, were for abolishing that punishment of the crime, which has subsisted for ages past, is interwoven with the first principles, and intimately connected with the foundations of, our policy (5). To visit the conse- quences of a crime on the innocent posterity of tlie offender, by depriving them of his property, may seem unjust; but inves- tigation will establish the wisdom of making the natural and social affections a controul upon irregular and selfish passions. And it is observable, that the right ofinheritancebeing, it seems, rather a matter of civil regulation and policy, than exclusively conferred by the law of nature (c), it is not injustice to inter- (a) Forfeitures in counties palatine. Forfeiture, said to be written by the 1 Bla. Com. 1 1 8. Honourable Mr. York, page 5. {b"i Sec Considerations on the Law of (c) See ibid. 2 Bla. Com, 11. weave
