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Untitled Article
steady and solid than a house of cards . The evil we are apprehensive of is stagnation , not movement ; we can anticipate nothing in the present age but good , from the severest , from even the most hostile scrutiny of the first principles of the social union . Instead of expecting society to fall to pieces , our fear is lest ( the old creeds , which formerly gave to the established order of things a foundation in men ' s consciences , having become
obsolete ) the fabric should mechanically hold together by the mere instinctive action of men ' s immediate personal interests , without any basis of moral conviction at all . Rather than see this we should prefer to see the whole of the working classes speculatively Owenites or Saint Simonians . We are not frightened at anti-property doctrines . We have no
fear that they should ever prevail so extensively as to be dangerous . But we have the greatest fear lest the classes possessed of property should degenerate more and more into selfish , unfeeling Sybarites , receiving from society all that society can give , and rendering it no service in return , content to let the numerical majority remain sunk in mental barbarism and physical destitution . ******
' The Society of the Rights of Man some months ago embodied their principles on the subject of property in the form of a manifesto , along with which they republished , as a compendium of their opinions , a Declaration of the Rights of Man , which was proposed by Robespierre to the National Convention to be prefixed to their republican constitution , and was by that body rejected . The name of Robespierre was well calculated to excite a prejudice against this document , but any thing more harmless
than its contents can scarcely be conceived . Such , however , was not the impression of the Parisian public . The writer of this was at Paris when the document made its appearance , and he well remembers his astonishment at the nature and intensity of the sentiments it appeared to excite . Those who did not deem it too contemptible to be formidable were filled with consternation . The Government party , the Carlista , the
Liberals , were unanimous in crying anarchy and confusion ; even Republicans shook their heads and said , " This is going too far . " And what does the reader imagine was the proposition which appeared so startling and so alarming to all parties ? It was no other than the definition which , in the Robespierrian declaration of rights , was given of the " right of property , " and ran as follows : — 4
* < The right of property is the right which every one possesses of using and enjoying the poriion of wealth which is guaranteed to him by the law . " { La portion de biens qui lid est garantie par la loi . J 4 Such is the superstitious , or rather idolatrous , character of the respect for property in France , that this proposition actually appeared an alarming heresy , was denounced with the utmost acrimony by all the enemies of the propounded , and timidly and hesitatingly excused rather than vindicated by their friends . The maxim was evidently too much
• for all parties ; it was a doctrine considerably in advance of them ; even republicans required some time to make up their minds . Ardent revolutionists , men who were ready to take up arms at five minutes' notice for the subversion of the existing dynasty , doubted whether they could admit , as a speculative truth , that property is not of natural right , but of human constitution , and is the creature of law . Truly , there is little fear for the safety of property in France . We believe that in no country in tbe world , not even the United States of America , is property so
Untitled Article
394 The Mtmttr Trial .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1835, page 394, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2646/page/30/
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