But if laws and the Governments which enact laws confined themselves within the limits I have indicated, how could revolutions occur? If each citizen were free, he would doubtless be less exposed to suffering; and if, at the same time, the feeling of responsibility were brought to bear on him from all sides, how should he ever take it into his head to attribute his sufferings to a law, to a Government which concerned itself no farther with him than to repress his acts of injustice and protect him from the injustice of others? Do we ever find a village rising against the authority of the local magistrate?
The influence of liberty on the cause of order is sensibly felt in the United States. There, all, save the administration of justice and of public property, is left to the free and voluntary transactions of the citizens; and there, accordingly, we find fewer of the elements and chances of revolution than in any other country of the world. What semblance of interest, could the citizens of such a country have in changing the established order of things by violence, when, on the one hand, this order of things clashes with no man’s interests, and, on the other, may be legally and readily modified if necessary?
But I am wrong. There are two active causes of revolution at work in the United States—slavery and commercial restriction. It is notorious that these two questions are constantly placing in jeopardy the public peace and the federal union. Now, is it possible to conceive a more decisive argument in support of the thesis I am now maintaining? Have we not here an instance of the law acting in direct antagonism to what ought to be the design and aim of all laws? Is not this a case of law and public force sanctioning, strengthening, perpetuating, systematizing, and protecting oppression and spoliation, in place of fulfilling its legitimate mission of protecting liberty and property? As regards slavery, the law says, “I shall create a force, at the expense of the citizens, not to maintain each in his rights, but to annihilate altogether the rights of a portion of the inhabitants.” As regards tariffs, the law says, “I shall create a force, at the expense of the citizens, not to ensure the freedom of their bargains and transactions, but to [p443] destroy that freedom, to impair the equivalence of services, to give to one citizen the liberty of two, and to deprive another of liberty altogether. My function is to commit injustice, which I nevertheless visit with the severest punishment when committed by the citizens themselves without my interposition.”
It is not, then, because we have few laws and few functionaries, or, in other words, because we have few public services, that revolutions are to be feared; but, on the contrary, because we have many laws, many functionaries, and many public services. Public services, the law which regulates them, the force which establishes them, are from their nature never neutral. They may be enlarged without danger, on the contrary with advantage, when they are necessary to the vigorous enforcement of justice; but carried beyond this point they are so many instruments of legal oppression and spoliation, so many causes of disorder and revolutionary ferment.
Shall I venture to describe the poisonous immorality which is infused into all the veins of the body politic, when the law thus sets itself, upon principle, to indulge the plundering propensities of the citizens? Attend a meeting of the national representatives when the question happens to turn on bounties, encouragements, favours, or restrictions. See with what shameless rapacity all endeavour to secure a share of the spoil,—spoil which, as individuals, they would blush to touch. The very man who would regard himself as a highway robber, if, meeting me on the frontier and clapping a pistol to my head, he prevented me from concluding a bargain which was for my advantage, makes no scruple whatever in proposing and voting a law which substitutes the public force for his own, and subjects me to the very same restriction at my own expense. In this respect, what a melancholy spectacle France presents at this very moment! All classes are suffering, and in place of demanding the abolition for ever of all legal spoliation, each turns to the law, and says, “You who can do everything, you who have the public force at your disposal, you who can bring good out of evil, be pleased to rob and plunder all other classes, to put money in my pocket. Force them to come to my shop, or pay me bounties and premiums, give my family gratuitous education, lend me money without interest,” etc.
It is in this way that the law becomes a source of demoralization, and if anything ought to surprise us, it is that the propensity to individual plunder does not make more progress, when the moral sense of the nation is thus perverted by legislation itself.
The deplorable thing is, that spoliation, when thus sanctioned by [p444] law, and opposed by no individual scruple, ends by becoming quite a learned theory with an attendant train of professors, journals, doctors, legislators, sophisms, and subtleties. Among the traditional quibbles which are brought forward in its support we may remark this one, namely, that, cæteris paribus, an enlargement of demand is of advantage to those by whom labour is supplied, seeing that the new relation between a more active demand and a supply which is stationary is what increases the value of the service. From these premises the conclusion follows that spoliation is of advantage to everybody: to the plundering class, which it enriches directly; to the plundered class, by its reflex influence. The plundering class having become richer finds itself in a situation to enlarge the circle of its enjoyments, and this it cannot do without creating a larger demand for the services of the class which has been robbed. Now, as regards each service, an enlargement of demand is an increase of value. The classes, then, who are legally plundered are too happy to be robbed, since the profit arising from the theft thus redounds to them, and helps to find them employment.
As long as the law confined itself to robbing the many for the benefit of the few, this quibble appeared specious, and was never invoked but with success. “Let us hand over to the rich,” it was said, “the taxes levied from the poor, and we shall thus augment the capital of the wealthy classes. The rich will indulge in luxury, and luxury will give employment to the poor.” And all, poor included, regarded this recipe as infallible; and for having exposed its hollowness, I have been long regarded, and am still regarded, as an enemy of the working classes.
But since the revolution of February the poor have had a voice in the making of our laws. Have they required that the law should cease to sanction spoliation? Not at all. The sophism of the rebound, of the reflex influence, has got too firmly into their heads. What is it they have asked for? That the law should become impartial, and consent to rob all classes in their turn. They have asked for gratis education, gratis advances of capital, friendly societies founded by the State, progressive taxation, etc. And then the rich have set themselves to cry out, “How scandalous! All is over with us! New barbarians threaten society with an irruption!” To the pretensions of the poor they have opposed a desperate resistance, first with the bayonet and then with the ballot-box. But for all this, have the rich given up spoliation? They have not even dreamt of that; and the argument of the rebound still serves as the pretext. [p445]
Were this system of spoliation carried on by them directly, and without the intervention of the law, the sophism would become transparent. Were you to take from the pocket of the workman a franc to pay your ticket to the theatre, would you have the face to say to him, “My good friend, this franc will circulate and give employment to you and others of your class?” Or if you did, would he not be justified in answering, “The franc will circulate just as well if you do not steal it from me. It will go to the baker instead of the scene-painter. It will procure me bread in place of procuring you amusement.”