" Alas! Government is only too much disposed
to follow this diabolical advice, for it is composed of ministers and
officials--of men, in short, who, like all other men, desire in their
hearts, and always seize every opportunity with eagerness, to increase
their wealth and influence. Government is not slow to perceive the
advantages it may derive from the part which is entrusted to it by the
public. It is glad to be the judge and the master of the destinies of
all; it will take much, for then a large share will remain for itself;
it will multiply the number of its agents; it will enlarge the circle of
its privileges; it will end by appropriating a ruinous proportion.
But the most remarkable part of it is the astonishing blindness of the
public through it all. When successful soldiers used to reduce the
vanquished to slavery, they were barbarous, but they were not absurd.
Their object, like ours, was to live at other people's expense, and they
did not fail to do so. What are we to think of a people who never seem
to suspect that _reciprocal plunder_ is no less plunder because it is
reciprocal; that it is no less criminal because it is executed legally
and with order; that it adds nothing to the public good; that it
diminishes it, just in proportion to the cost of the expensive medium
which we call the Government?
And it is this great chimera which we have placed, for the edification
of the people, as a frontispiece to the Constitution.
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