The daily union. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1845-1857, 1845-12-27
THE DAILY UNION

the same time, are said to recognise $50 marked an
equality Of conditions and pursus" No; il is only
where property aceumuates IN the hands Of the CIR
eisrs tsc, under aristocratic governments where
the majority are taxed for the support of the mino
ity, who thus become onoposts-where, from the
very pature of such governments, an enormous sup
ply, by means OF heavy and direct assessment, IS
put under the control of pampered oigarchy, who,
IN consulting the dignity of "churoh and state, |"
manage always to take good care of themselves and
frends--it is only under governments like these,
where, by virtue Of The law Of primogeniture, for in
stance, estates are enaied In the person OF the one
Representative, who holds al will large body Of
subotdnales In the shape of enants-it is only un-
dersuch governments we REPEAT, that property Is
exposed to the invasion of that "numercA MAORI
ty,n who, under such governments, will generally
be found TO be the practical advocates, not merely Of
agraFiansin, blu, Of that other law which was IN
force at Rome for limiting the property of cti-
zens, known the Lcinian law. Ii is surely, then,
not necessary to say, that under institutions like our
own, property is infinitely safer, as 1t were, IN the
first insiance-that is, from the very nature of our
government, whose practice, like its theory, is
economy; and that it can only be at that advanced
stage, period of decadence, when population out
strips property, the means OF subsistence, that
proprietary rights can possibly be said 10 be endan
gered under democratic institutions. Under aristo-
cratic governments, on the contrary, this state of
things is often superinduced by the very constitution
of such governments; and the wilful error of the
British reviewer consists in his overlooking this
fact and, in the very face of it, Of surprising that
there is something conservative In the minority-that
is, (asin England,) the privileged orders;' and
usurpatve in the majority--the oppressed and tax
ridden people. Now this numerical majority are no
more necessarily usurpatve, than are the minority
relatively so, they may be; but this relation,
as we have said, which subsists between the gov
eminent and the governed is tenfold greater under
arisocratic than under republican institutions. Ii
facts be needed to sustain these views we have only
to look to England herself, who, reversing the ia
miliar maxim that 'charity begins at home," sends
her political Emissions" abroad to convert the
publican heather Of the west, while misery and
degradation, in their worst and most revolving
forms, darken the moral horizon of that ''invoate
island of the sage and free" For our facts, we re-
peat, we need only look at the state of things in
Great Britain, where the people are taxed to sup
port the olgarchy. What are her "corn-laws,"
'livings," "sinecures," law Of primogeniture; her
enormous assessments; her union, in short, of
''church and state," What are these but so many
laws for making the rich richer and the poor poorer
And yet this is the country where the "principle Of
property Is said to be safer than under institutions
which, like those Of the United States, s'recognise
so marked an equality Of conditions and pursuits. -
these to render dissatisfied with those institutions,
which is one of the objects aimed at throughout the
article in the London Review, which we have thus
endeavored to expose it deserves. With regard
to "good government" them and the science of
Quoting it, we have abundant reason for saying TO
our British "brehren," Gas they are indeed, "mis-
called) in the language of the Socratic disciple in
the play-"We wish to be no wiser in these mat.
tersn