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02 - The Law - Frederic Bastiat · Logic Library

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  Section two. Another effect of this deplorable perversion of the law is that it
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  gives to human passions, and to political struggles, and in general, to
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  politics properly so called an exaggerated importance. I could prove this assertion in a
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  thousand ways, but I shall confine myself, by way of an illustration,
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  to bringing it to bear upon a subject which has of late occupied everybody's mind.
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  Universal suffrage, whatever may be thought of it by the adepts of the
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  school of Rousseau, which professes to be very far advanced, but which I
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  considered twenty centuries behind. Universal suffrage taking the word in its strictest sense is
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  not one of those sacred dogmas with respect to which examination and doubt are crimes.
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  Serious objections may be made to it. In the first place, the
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  word universal conceals a gross sophism. There are, in France the thirty six
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  million inhabitants. To make the right of suffrage universal, thirty six million electors
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  should be reckoned. The most extended system reckons only nine million, three persons
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  out of four then are excluded, and more than this they are excluded by
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  the fourth upon what principle is this exclusion founded upon the principle of incapacity.
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  Universal suffrage then means universal suffrage of those who are capable. In point of
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  fact, who are the capable are age, sex, and judicial condemnations,
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  the only conditions to which incapacity is to be attached. On taking a nearer
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  view of the subject, we may soon perceive the reason why the right of
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  suffrage depends upon the presumption of incapacity, the most extended system differing from the
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  most restricted in the conditions on which this incapacity depends, and which constitution not
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  a difference in principle, but in degree. This motive is that the elector
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  does not stipulate for himself, but for everybody. If, as the republicans
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  of the Greek and Roman tone pretend, the right of suffrage has fallen to
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  the lot of everyone at his birth, it would be an injustice to adults
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  to prevent women and children from voting. Why are they prevented because they are
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  presumed to be incapable? And why is in capacity a reason for exclusion?
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  Because the elector does not reap alone the responsibility of his vote, Because every
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  vote engages and affects the community at large, Because the community has a right
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  to demand some assurances as regards the acts upon which its well being and its
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  existence depend. I know what might be said in answer to this, I
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  know what might be objected. But this is not the place to settle a
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  controversy of this kind. What I wish to observe is this that this same
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  controversy, in common with the greater part of political questions, that agitates,
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  excites, and unsettles the nations, would lose almost all its importance if the
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  law had always been what it ought to be. In fact, if law
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  were confined to causing all persons, all liberties, and all properties to be
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  respected, if it were merely the organization of individual rights and individual defense,
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  if it were the obstacle, the check, the chastisement opposed to all oppression,
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  to all plunder. Is it likely that we should dispute much as citizens,
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  on the subject of greater or lesser universality of suffrage. Is it likely
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  that it would compromise that greatest of advantages the public peace. Is it likely
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  that the excluded classes would not quietly wait for their turn. Is it likely
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  that the enfranchised classes would be very jealous of their privilege? And is it
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  not clear that the interest of all being one and the same, some would
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  act without much inconvenience to the others. But if the fatal principle should come
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  to be introduced, that under pretense of organization, regulation, protection, or
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  encouragement, the law may take from one party in order to give to another
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  help itself to the wealth acquired by all the classes, that it may increase
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  that of one class, whether that of the agriculturists, the manufacturers, the
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  ship owners, or artists and comedians. Then certainly, in this case there
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  is no class which may not try and with reason to place its hand upon
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  the law, that would not demand with fury its right of election and eligibility,
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  and that would overturn society rather than not obtain it. Even beggars and
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  vagabonds will prove to you that they have an incontestable title to it. They
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  will say, we never buy wine, tobacco, or salt without paying the
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  tax. And a part of this tax is given by law in perquisites and
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  gratuities to men who are richer than we are. Others make use of the
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  law to create an artificial rise in the price of bread, meat, iron,
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  or cloth. Since everybody traffics in law for his own profit. We
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  should like to do the same. We should like to make it produce the
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  right to assistance, which is the poor man's plunder. To affect this,
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  we ought to be electors and legislators that we may organize on a large scale
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  alms for our own class, as you have organized on a large scale protection
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  for yours. Don't tell us that you will take our cause upon yourselves and
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  throw to us six hundred thousand francs to keep us quiet, like giving us
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  a bone to pick. We have other claims, and at any rate we
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  wish to stipulate for ourselves as other classes have stipulated for themselves. How is
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  this argument to be answered? Yes, as long as it is admitted that
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  the law may be diverted from its true mission, that it may violate property
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  instead of securing it, everybody will be wanting to manufacture law, either to
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  defend himself against plunder or to organize it for his own profit. The political
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  question will always be prejudicial, predominant, and absorbing. In a word,
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  there will be fighting around the door of the legislative palace. The struggle will
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  be no less furious within it. To be convinced of this it is hardly
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  necessary to look at what passes in the chambers in France and in England.
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  It is enough to know how the question stands. Is there any need to
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  prove that this odious perversion of law is a perpetual source of hatred and discord,
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  that it even tends to social disorganization? Look at the United States.
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  There is no country in the world where the law is kept more within its
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  proper domain, which is to secure to everyone his liberty and his property.
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  Therefore, there is no country in the world where social order appears to rest
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  upon a more solid basis. Nevertheless, even in the United States, there
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  are two questions, and only two, that from the beginning have endangered political
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  order. And what are these two questions? That of slavery and that of
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  tariffs? That is, precisely the only two questions in which, contrary to
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  the general spirit of this republic, law has taken the character of a plunderer.
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  Slavery is a violation sanctioned by law of the rights of the person.
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  Protection is a violation perpetrated by the law upon the rights of property. And
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  certainly, it is very remarkable that in the midst of so many other debates
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  this double legal scourge, the sorrowful inheritance of the old world, should be
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  the only one which can and perhaps will, cause the rupture of the Union.
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  Indeed, a more astounding fact in the heart of society cannot be conceived
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  than this, that law should have become an instrument of injustice. And if
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  this fact occasions consequences so formidable to the United States, where there is but
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  one exception, what must it be with us in Europe, where it is
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  a principle a system. Mister Monte Lambert, adopting the thought of a famous
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  proclamation of mister Carlier, said we must make war against socialism, and by
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  socialism, according to the definition of mister Charles, he meant plunder. But
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  what plunder did he mean? For there are two sorts extra legal and legal
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  plunder. As to extra legal plunder, such as theft or swindling, which
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  is defined, foreseen and punished by the penal code, I do not think
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  it can be adorned by the name of socialism. It is not this that
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  systematically threatens the foundations of society. Besides, the war against this kind of
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  plunder has not waited for the signal of mister mount Lambert or mister Carlyier.
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  It has gone on since the beginning of the world. France was carrying it
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  on long or before the Revolution of February, long before the appearance of socialism,
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  with all its ceremonies of magistry, police, gendarmerie, prisons, dungeons
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  and scaffolds. It is the law itself that is conducting this war, and
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  it is to be wished, in opinion that the law should always maintain this
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  attitude with respect to plunder. But this is not the case. The law
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  sometimes takes its own part. Sometimes it accomplishes it with its own hands,
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  in order to save the parties benefited, the shame, the danger and the
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  scruple. Sometimes it places all this ceremony of magistracy, police, gendarmerie and
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  prisons at the service of the plunderer, and treats the plundered party when he
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  defends himself as a criminal. In a word, there is a legal plunder,
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  and it is no doubt this that is meant by mister Montalambert end of
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  Section two.