Nothing is a due and adequate representation of a state that does not
represent its ability, as well as its property. But as ability is a
vigorous and active principle, and as property is sluggish, inert, and
timid, it never can be safe from the invasions of ability, unless it
be, out of all proportion, predominant in the representation. It must
be represented too in great masses of accumulation, or it is not rightly
protected. The characteristic essence of property, formed out of the
combined principles of its acquisition and conservation, is to be
UNEQUAL. The great masses, therefore, which excite envy, and tempt
rapacity, must be put out of the possibility of danger. Then they form a
natural rampart about the lesser properties in all their gradations.
The same quantity of property, which is by the natural course of things
divided among many, has not the same operation. Its defensive power is
weakened as it is diffused. In this diffusion each man's portion is less
than what, in the eagerness of his desires, he may flatter himself to
obtain by dissipating the accumulations of others. The plunder of
the few would, indeed, give but a share inconceivably small in the
distribution to the many. But the many are not capable of making
this calculation; and those who lead them to rapine never intend this
distribution.
The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the
most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that
which tends the most to the perpetuation of society itself. It makes
our weakness subservient to our virtue; it grafts benevolence even upon
avarice. The possessors of family wealth, and of the distinction which
attends hereditary possession (as most concerned in it), are the natural
securities for this transmission. With us the House of Peers is formed
upon this principle. It is wholly composed of hereditary property
and hereditary distinction; and made, therefore, the third of the
legislature; and, in the last event, the sole judge of all property in
all its subdivisions. The House of Commons, too, though not necessarily,
yet in fact, is always so composed, in the far greater part. Let those
large proprietors be what they will, and they have their chance of being
among the best, they are, at the very worst, the ballast in the vessel
of the commonwealth. For though hereditary wealth, and the rank which
goes with it, are too much idolized by creeping sycophants, and the
blind, abject admirers of power, they are too rashly slighted in shallow
speculations of the petulant, assuming, short-sighted coxcombs of
philosophy. Some decent, regulated pre-eminence, some preference (not
exclusive appropriation) given to birth, is neither unnatural, nor
unjust, nor impolitic. It is said, that twenty-four millions ought
to prevail over two hundred thousand. True; if the constitution of a
kingdom be a problem of arithmetic. This sort of discourse does well
enough with the lamp-post for its second: to men who MAY reason calmly,
it is ridiculous. The will of the many, and their interest, must very
often differ; and great will be the difference when they make an evil
choice.