This end is never perfectly attained in any state where the unequal
division of property is admitted, and where fortune is allowed to bestow
distinction and rank. It is indeed difficult, by any methods whatever, to
shut up this source of corruption. Of all the nations whose history is
known with certainty, the design itself, and the manner of executing it,
appear to have been understood in Sparta alone.
There property was indeed acknowledged by law; but in consequence of
certain regulations and practices, the most effectual, it seems, that
mankind have hitherto found out. The manners that prevail among simple
nations before the establishment of property, were in some measure
preserved; [Footnote: See Part II. Sec. 2.] the passion for riches was,
during many ages, suppressed; and the citizen was made to consider himself
as the property of his country, not as the owner of a private estate.
It was held ignominious either to buy or to sell the patrimony of a
citizen. Slaves were, in every family, intrusted with the care of its
effects, and freemen were strangers to lucrative arts; justice was
established on a contempt of the ordinary allurement to crimes; and the
preservatives of civil liberty applied by the state, were the dispositions
that were made to prevail in the hearts of its members.
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