WHAT IS PROPERTY?
A LETTER TO M. BLANQUI.
SECOND MEMOIR.
Monsieur,—
Before resuming my “Inquiries into Government and Property,” it is fitting, for the satisfaction of some worthy people, and also in the interest of order, that I should make to you a plain, straightforward explanation. In a much-governed State, no one would be allowed to attack the external form of the society, and the groundwork of its institutions, until he had established his right to do so,—first, by his morality; second, by his capacity; and, third, by the purity of his intentions. Any one who, wishing to publish a treatise upon the constitution of the country, could not satisfy this threefold condition, would be obliged to procure the endorsement of a responsible patron possessing the requisite qualifications.
But we Frenchmen have the liberty of the press. This grand right—the sword of thought, which elevates the virtuous citizen to the rank of legislator, and makes the malicious citizen an agent of discord—frees us from all preliminary responsibility to the law; but it does not release us from our internal obligation to render a public account of our sentiments and thoughts. I have used, in all its fulness, and
