25
three hundred and forty thousand families, in the case we have supposed are without political existence; while sixty thousand other families possess the whole property of the State. If these latter shall choose, even at the price of slavery, to give to the former, the means of physical existence, it is well; and they may live. But, if not, for any thing which their government has done, they must perish!
I allow, that some abatement is to be made, of this great number of the poor, from the fact that all the land-holders, cannot be expected to have as much as 500 acres, at the same time that they are restrained from having more; and that, therefore, a greater portion of the population will be owners of the soil, than I have chosen to suppose. This, however, is a matter of no consequence; for where principle is concerned, injustice and impolicy are not to be estimated by numbers. Besides, if, under the mildest and happiest operation of the Agrarian Law, such an amount of misery, as this abatement would leave, was sure to arise what ought not to be expected, when there is no restriction whatever to the accumulation of estates? When instead of 500, a man might own 5000, or even 500,000 acres, according to his means, of obtaining, or acquiring them?
I do not stop now to inquire, why it is, that these sixty thousand families should be considered as having, under any possible circumstances, a
3
