To this tax the land proprietor contributes only in proportion to the quantity of bread and other provisions that are consumed in his own family. The deficit is furnished by the great mass of the community, which comprehends every individual of the nation.
From the logical distinction between the direct and in-direct taxation, some emolument may result, I allow, to auditors of public accounts, &c., but to the people at large I deny that such a distinction (which by the by is without a difference) can be productive of any practical benefit. It ought not, therefore, to be admitted as a principle in the constitution.
Besides this objection, the provision in question does not affect to define, secure, or establish the right of citizenship. It consigns to the caprice or discretion of the legislature the power of pronouncing who shall, or shall not, exercise the functions of a citizen; and this may be done effectually, either by the imposition of a direct or indirect tax, according to the selfish views of the legislators, or by the mode of collecting the taxes so imposed.
Neither a tenant who occupies an extensive farm, nor a merchant or manufacturer who may have embarked a large capital in their respective pursuits, can ever, according to this system, attain the preemption of a citizen. On the other hand, any upstart, who has, by succession or management, got possession of a few acres of land or a miserable tenement, may exultingly exercise the functions of a citizen, although perhaps neither possesses a hundredth part of the worth or property of a simple mechanic, nor contributes in any proportion to the exigencies of the State.
The contempt in which the old government held mercantile pursuits, and the obloquy that attached on merchants and manufacturers, contributed not a little to its embarrassments, and its eventual subversion; and, strange to tell, though the mischiefs arising from this mode of conduct are so obvious, yet an article is proposed for your adoption which has a manifest tendency to restore a defect inherent in the monarchy.
I shall now proceed to the second article of the same Title, with which I shall conclude my remarks.
The second article says, "Every French soldier, who shall have served one or more campaigns in the cause of liberty, is deemed a citizen of the republic, without any respect or reference to other qualifications."(1)
It would seem, that in this Article the Committee were desirous of extricating themselves from a dilemma into which they had been plunged by the preceding article. When men depart from an established principle they are compelled to resort to trick and subterfuge, always shifting their means to preserve the unity of their objects; and as it rarely happens that the first expedient makes amends for the prostitution of principle, they must call in aid a second, of a more flagrant nature, to supply the deficiency of the former. In this manner legislators go on accumulating error upon error, and artifice upon artifice, until the mass becomes so bulky and incongruous, and their embarrassment so desperate, that they are compelled, as their last expedient, to resort to the very principle they had violated. The Committee were precisely in this predicament when they framed this article; and to me, I confess, their conduct appears specious rather than efficacious.(2)
1 This article eventually stood: "All Frenchmen who shall
have made one or more campaigns for the establishment of the
Republic, are citizens, without condition as to taxes."—
Editor.
2 The head of the Committee (eleven) was the Abbi Sieves,
whose political treachery was well known to Paine before it
became known to the world by his services to Napoleon in
overthrowing the Republic.—Editor.
It was not for himself alone, but for his family, that the French citizen, at the dawn of the revolution, (for then indeed every man was considered a citizen) marched soldier-like to the frontiers, and repelled a foreign invasion. He had it not in his contemplation, that he should enjoy liberty for the residue of his earthly career, and by his own act preclude his offspring from that inestimable blessing. No! He wished to leave it as an inheritance to his children, and that they might hand it down to their latest posterity. If a Frenchman, who united in his person the character of a Soldier and a Citizen, was now to return from the army to his peaceful habitation, he must address his small family in this manner: "Sorry I am, that I cannot leave to you a small portion of what I have acquired by exposing my person to the ferocity of our enemies and defeating their machinations. I have established the republic, and, painful the reflection, all the laurels which I have won in the field are blasted, and all the privileges to which my exertions have entitled me extend not beyond the period of my own existence!" Thus the measure that has been adopted by way of subterfuge falls short of what the framers of it speculated upon; for in conciliating the affections of the Soldier, they have subjected the Father to the most pungent sensations, by obliging him to adopt a generation of Slaves.