No merits or defects can raise or sink a person from one
class to the other. The only effect of personal character is, to procure to
the individual a suitable degree of consideration with his own order, not
to vary his rank. In one situation he is taught to assume, in another to
yield the pre-eminence. He occupies the station of patron or client, and is
either the sovereign or the subject of his country. The whole citizens may
unite in executing the plans of state, but never in deliberating on its
measures, or enacting its laws. What belongs to the whole people under
democracy, is here confined to a part. Members of the superior order are
among themselves, possibly, classed according to their abilities, but
retain a perpetual ascendant over those of inferior station. They are at
once the servants and the masters of the state, and pay, with their
personal attendance and with their blood, for the civil or military honours
they enjoy.
To maintain for himself, and to admit in his fellow citizen, a perfect
equality of privilege and station, is no longer the leading maxim of the
member of such a community.
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