A has inherited or earned a sum of money; B, being
more cunning than A, obtains a law enabling him to get
A's money, directly or indirectly; and after he has gotten
it, the law guarantees it to B. Was this money private
property in the hands of A? Is the social sanction which
secured it in his hands, less sacred or just, than the legal
sanction which transferred it to B?
If property is admitted to be a social right, it does not follow that society gives an absolute power over it to governments. Upon this ground however, sovereigns ingeniously invented forfeitures for offences, and applied them to their own use. By this feudal fraud, privileged orders were nurtured. Our policy detected and abolished this fraud. An invention for the benefit of society, ought not to be used to its injury. It followed the same principle in a denunciation of the whole tribe of exclusive privileges, which like forfeitures, would all serve to feed some order or faction. And having thus disposed of forfeitures, and privileges, it never could have intended to invest law with a power to apply private property, to a use, to which it refuses to condemn fines for crimes.
All societies have exercised the right of abolishing privileged, stipendiary or factitious property, whenever they became detrimental to them; nor have kings, churches or aristocracies ever hesitated to do the same thing, for the same reason. The king of England joined the people and judges, in abolishing the tenures and perpetuities of the nobles; the king and nobles united in abolishing the property of the popish clergy; the consistory of Rome suppressed the order of Jesuits and disposed of its property; and several of these states, have abolished intails, tithes and hierarchical establishments. What stronger ground can be occupied by any species of law-be gotten wealth, than by these?
Poverty is justly exasperated against the wealth which caused it; but it temperately contemplates wealth, flowing from industry and talents, and not from fraudulent laws.
