The Pennsylvania packet, or, The general advertiser — Lancaster, Pa.;Philadelphia, Pa., 1780-01-29 00:00:00, page 1

CHA P. 111.
What is meant by a Love of the Republic in a Democra
cy.
A LOV Eof the republic in a democracy is a love
of the democracy; a love of the democracy is that of
equality.
Alove of the democracy is likewjfe that of frugality.
As every individual ought to have here the fame happiness
and the fame advantages, they ought consequently to taste
the fame pleasures and to form the fame hopes ; which
cannot be expected but from a general frugality.
The love of equality in a democracy, limits ambition
to the sole desire, the sole happiness of doing greater ser
vices to our country than the rest of our fellow-citizens.
They cannot all render her equal services, but they ought
all to serve her with equal alacrity. At our coming into
the world, we contrail an immense debt to our country,
which we can never discharge.
Hence diftinaions arise here from the principle of equal
' "yr even when it seems to be removed by signal services,
er superior abilities.
The love of frugality limits the desire of having to the
attention requisite for procuring necessaries to our family,
and luperfluities to our country. Riches give a power
which a citizen cannot use for himfelf, for then he would
be no longer equal. They likewise procure pleasures which
heought not to enjoy, because these would also subvert
the equality.
Thus well regulated democracies, by establishing do
mestic frugality, made way at the fame time for public
expences, as was the case at R@me and Athens, when
munificence and profufion arose from the very fund of
frugality. And as religion requires us to have pure and
unspotted hands when we make our offerings to the Gods,
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From the BARON DE MONTESQUIEU's
SPIRIT of LAWS.
CHAP. I.
Idea of this B®ok.
THAT the laws of education ought to be relative to
the principle of each government, has been shewn
in the preceding book. Now the fame may be laid of
those which the legislator gives to the whole society. This
relation of laws to this principle, Rrengthens the several
Springs of government, and this principle receives from
thence, in its turn, a new degree of flrngth. And thus
it is in mechanics, that action is always followed by re
adion.
Our design is to examine this relation in each govern
ment, beginning with the republican Rate whose principle
is virtue.
CHAP. 11.
What is meant by Virtue in a Political State.
VIRTUE in a republic is a most simple thing ; it is
a love for the republic ; it is a sensation, and not a conse
quence of acquired knowledge: a sensation that may be
felt by the meanest as well as by the highest person in the
State. When the common people adopt good maxims,
they adhere to them Readier than those we call gentlemen.
It is very rare that corruption commences with the form
er ; nay, they frequently derive from their imperfect light
a Wronger attachment to the established laws and customs.
The love of our country is conducive to a purity of
morals, and the latter is again conducive to the love of
our country. The less we are ableto fatisfy our particu
lar passions, the more we abandon onrfelves to those of a
general nature. How comes it that monks are so fond of
their order ? It is owing to the very cause that renders
the order insupportable. Their rule debars them of all
those things by which the ordinary passions are fed ; there
remains therefore only this passion for the very rule that
torments them. The more außere it is, that is, the more
it curbs their inclinations, the more force it gives to th^
only passion it leaves them.
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O R
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the laws require a frugality of life to enable us to be libe
ral to our country.
The good lenfe and happiness of individuals depend
greatly on the mediocrity of their talents and fortunes.
Therefore as a republic, where the laws have placed many
in a middling station, is compefed of wife men, it will be
wifely governed; as it is coropofed of happy men, it will
be extremely happy.
CHAP. IV.
In what manner the Love of Equality and Frugality is
inspired.
THE love of equality and of a frugal ceconomy is great
ly excited by equality and frugality themselves, in societies
where both these virtues are established by law.
In monarchies and despotic governments, no body aims
at equality ; this does not so much as enter their thoughts;
they all aspire to superiority. People of the very lowest
condition desire to emerge from their obscurity only to
lord it over their fellow fubje^s.
It is the fame with refpea to frugality. To love it we
muff pradife and enjoy it. It is not those who are ener
vated with pleasure, that are fond of a frugal life; were
this natural and common, Aicibiades would never have
been the admiration of the universe. Neither is it those
who envy or admire the luxury of the great; people that
have present to their view none but rich men or me® mi
serable like themselves, detest their miserable condition,
without loving or knowing the real term or point of mi
sery.
A true maxim it is therefore, that in order to love e
quality and frugality in a republic, these virtues muff
have been previously established by law.
CHA P. V.
In what manner the Laws eßablißi Equality in a Demo
cracy.
SOME ancient legislators, as Lycurgusand Romulus,
made an equal division of lands. A feitlement of this kind
Can never take place but upon the foundation of a new re
public ; or when the old one is so corrupt, and the minds
of the people so disposed, that the poor think themselves
obliged to demand, and the rich obliged to content to, a
remedy of this nature.
If the legislator, in making a division of this kind, does
not ena& lews at the fame time to support it, he forms on
ly a temporary conflitution; inequality will break in
where the laws have not precluded it, and the republic
will be utterly undone.
Hence for the preservation of this equality it is absolute
ly necessary there should be some regulation in refped
to women's dowries, donations, successions, testamentary
settlements, and all other forms of contriving. For were
it once allowed to dispose of our property to whom and
how we pleased, the will of each individual would disturb
the order of the fundamental law.
Solon, by permitting the Athenians upon failure ofiffue
to leave their estates to whom they pleased, a&ed contra
ry to the ancient laws by which the efiates were ordered
to continue in the family of the t^ftator ; and even contra
ry to his own laws, for by abolishing debts he had aimed
at equality.
The law which prohibited people's haying two inheri
tances * was extremely well adapted for a democracy. It
derived its origin from the equal distribution of lands and
portions made to each citizen. The law would not per
mit a single man to possess more than a single portion.
From the fame source arose those laws by which the next
relation was ordered to marry the heiress. This law
was given to the Jews after the like distribution. Plato
who grounds his laws on this division, made the fame re
gulation, which had been received as a law by the Athe
nians.
At Athens there was a law whose spirit, in my opinion,
has not been hitherto rightly understood. It was lawful
to marry a sister only by the father's fide, but it was not
permitted to marry a fifterby the fame venter f This
custom was originally owing to republics, whose spirit it
was not to let two portions of land, and consequently two
inheritances, devolve on the fame person. A man that
married his filler only by his father's fide, could inherit
but one estate, namely, that of bis father ; but by marry
ing his lifter by the fame venter, it might happen that his
sister's father having no male issue, might leave her his
estate, and consequently the brother that married her
might be possessed of two.
* Philolaus of Corinth made a law at Athens that the
number of the portions of land and that of inheritances
Should be always the fame. Arift, Polit. lib. 2. cap. 12.
t Cornelius Ne,os in prafat. This custom began in the
earliest times. Thus Abraham fays of Sarah, '< She is
my filter, my father's daughter, but not my mother's."
The fame reasons occasioned the eflablifhing the fame
law among different nations.
'FBI
, 'fiff^
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THE
OBO^
ADVERTISED
Little will it avail to object what Philo fayst, that
though the Athenians were allowed to marry a lifter by
the father's fide and not the mother's, yet the contrary
practice prevailed among the Lacedaemonians, who were
permitted to marry a sister by the mother's fide, and not
by the fathers. For I find in Strabo that at Sparta,
whenever a woman married her brother Rie had half his
portion for her dowry. Plain it is that this second law
was made in order to prevent the bad confequehces of the
RrR. That the estate belonging to the sister's family
might not devolve on the brothers, they gave half the
brother's estate to the filler for her dowry.
Seneca§, speaking of Silanus, who had married his lif
ter, fays, that the permiffiou was limited at Athens, but
general at Alexandria. In a monarchical government
there was very little concern about any such thing as a di
vision cf estates."
Excellent was that law, which, in order to maintain
this division of lands in a democracy, ordained that a fa
ther who had several children, flioulJ pitch upon one of
them to inherit his portion, and leave the others to be a
dopted, to the end that the nuir r >&r of citizens might al
ways be kept upon an equality with that of the divisions.
Phaleas of Cnalcedon contrived a very extraordinary
method of rendering all fortunes equal, in a republic where
there was the greatest inequality. This was, that the
ricn Ihould give fortunes with their daughters to the poor,
but mould receive none themselves; and that the poor
mould receive money for their daughters, instead of giving
tnem fortunes. But Ido not remember that a regulation
of this kind ever took place in any republic. It lays the
citizens under such fiard and odious conditions, as would
make them detest the very equality which they designed to
ettabhfli. It is proper sometimes that the laws /hould
not seem to tend so dire&ly to the end they propose.
Though real equality be the very foul of a democracy,
yet it is so difficult to establish, that an extreme exa^lnefe
in this refped would not be always convenient. Suffici
ent it is to eflablifh a census [I, which mould reduce or
fix the differences to a certain p@int : It is afterwards
the bufinefe of particular laws to level as it werq the ine
qualities, by the duties laid upon the rich, and by the ease
they afford to the poor. It is moderate riches alone that
can give or futfer this fort of comperffations; for as to
men of overgrown estates, every thing which does not
contribute to advance their power and honor, is considered
by them as an injury.
All inequality in a democracy ought to be derived from
the nature of the democracy, and even from the principle
of equality. For example, it may be app ehended that
people who are obliged to live by their labour, would be
too much impoverished by a public office, or negled the
duties attending it ; that artisans would grow insolent;
and that too gr.at a number of freedmen would over
power the ancient citizens In this case the equality of
the citizens * in a democracy may be suppressed, when
ever it will conduce to the utility of the fiate. But then
it is only an apparent equality they remove : for a man
ruined by a public office would be in a worse condition
ti an the rest of his fellow citizens, and this fame man be
ing obliged to negleft his duty would reduce the other
citizens to a werfe condition than himfelf, and so on
CHAP. VI.
In what manner the Laws ought to maintain Frugality
in a Democracy.
I T is not fufficient in a well regulated democracy that
the divisions of land be equal ; they ought also to be
small, as was cuflomary among the Romans. "God for
bid, said Curius to his foldiersf, that a citizen sh uld
look upon that as a small piece of land, which is fufficient
to support a man."
As the equality of fortunes supports frugality, frugality
supports the equality of fortunes. These things, though
in themselves different, are of such a nature as to be una
ble to subsist separately ; each is the cause and the effed ;
if one withdraws itfelf from a democracy, it is surely fol
lowed by the other.
True it is that when a democracy is founded on com
merce, private people may acquire vast riches without a
corruption of morals. This is because the spirit of com
merce is naturally attended with that of frugality, ceco
nomy, moderation, labour, prudence, tranquility, erder,
I De fpecialibuj legibus fr pertinent ad pr^cetta De.
calogi.
§ Athenis dimidium licet, Alexandria totum. Seneca de
morte Claudii.
II Solon made four classes, the firft, of those who had
an income of 500 minas either in corn or liquid fruits •
the second, of those who had 300, and were able to keep
a horse; the third, of these who had only 200; the fourth,
of all those who lived by their manual labour. Plut. Life
of Solon.
* Solon excludes from public employments all those of
the fourth class.
t fhey insisted upon a larger division of the conquered
lands. Plutarch's moral works. Lives of the antienc
Kings and Command re.
JAN UA R Y 29, 1780.
THE