233
in proportion as the people acquires a share of property, because on the one hand the contributions of the rich are then less needed, and on the other, it is more difficult to lay on taxes which do not affect the interests of the lower classes. On this account universal suffrage would be less dangerous in France than in England, because in the latter country the property on which taxes may be levied is vested in fewer hands. America, where the great majority of the citizens is possessed of some fortune, is in a still more favourable position than France.
There are still farther causes which may increase the sum of public expenditures in democratic countries. When the aristocracy governs, the individuals who conduct the affairs of state are exempted, by their own station in society, from every kind of privation: they are contented with their position; power and renown are the objects for which they strive; and, as they are placed far above the obscurer throng of citizens, they do not always distinctly perceive how the wellbeing of the mass of the people ought to redound to their own honour. They are not, indeed, callous to the sufferings of the poor, but they cannot feel those miseries as acutely as if they were themselves partakers of them. Provided that the people appear to submit to its lot, the rulers are satisfied, and they demand nothing farther from the government. An aristocracy is more intent upon the means of maintaining its influence, than upon the means of improving its condition.
When, on the contrary, the people is invested with the supreme authority, the perpetual sense of their own miseries impels the rulers of society to seek for perpetual meliorations. A thousand different objects are subjected to improvement; the most trivial details are sought out as susceptible of amendment; and those changes which are accompanied with considerable expense, are more especially advocated, since the object is to render the condition of the poor more tolerable, who cannot pay for themselves.
Moreover, all democratic communities are agitated by an ill defined excitement, and by a kind of feverish impatience, that engenders a multitude of innovations, almost all of which are attended with expense.
In monarchies and aristocracies, the natural taste which the rulers have for power and for renown, is stimulated by the promptings of ambition, and they are frequently incited by these tempta-
