The characteristic
essence of property, formed out of the combined principles of its
acquisition and conservation, is to be unequal. The great masses,
therefore, which excite envy and tempt rapacity must be put out of the
possibility of danger. Then they form a natural rampart about the
lesser properties in all their gradations. The same quantity of
property, which is by the natural course of things divided among many,
has not the same operation. Its defensive power is weakened as it is
diffused. In this diffusion each man's portion is less than what, in
the eagerness of his desires, he may flatter himself to obtain by
dissipating the accumulations of others. The plunder of the few
would indeed give but a share inconceivably small in the
distribution to the many. But the many are not capable of making
this calculation; and those who lead them to rapine never intend
this distribution.
The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of
the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and
that which tends the most to the perpetuation of society itself. It
makes our weakness subservient to our virtue, it grafts benevolence
even upon avarice. The possessors of family wealth, and of the
distinction which attends hereditary possession (as most concerned
in it), are the natural securities for this transmission. With us
the House of Peers is formed upon this principle.
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