Fortune and misfortune, wealth and
destitution, equality and inequality, all proceed from it. It is charged
with everything, it undertakes everything, it does everything; therefore
it has to answer for everything. If we are happy, it has a right to
claim our gratitude; but if we are miserable, it alone must bear the
blame. Are not our persons and property, in fact, at its disposal? Is
not the law omnipotent? In creating the universitary monopoly, it has
engaged to answer the expectations of fathers of families who have been
deprived of liberty; and if these expectations are disappointed, whose
fault is it? In regulating industry, it has engaged to make it prosper,
otherwise it would have been absurd to deprive it of its liberty; and if
it suffers, whose fault is it? In pretending to adjust the balance of
commerce by the game of tariffs, it engages to make it prosper; and if,
so far from prospering, it is destroyed, whose fault is it? In granting
its protection to maritime armaments in exchange for their liberty, it
has engaged to render them lucrative; if they become burdensome, whose
fault is it?
Thus, there is not a grievance in the nation for which the Government
does not voluntarily make itself responsible. Is it to be wondered at
that every failure threatens to cause a revolution?
And what is the remedy proposed? To extend indefinitely the dominion of
the law, _i.
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