were given, thus making absolute poverty or overgrown riches
impossible; the establishment of a year of jubilee, once every fifty
years, when there should be a release of all servitude, and all debts, and
all the social inequalities which half a century produced; a magistracy
chosen by the people, and its responsibility to the people; a speedy and
impartial administration of justice; the absence of a standing army and
the prohibition of cavalry, thus indicating a peaceful policy, and the
preservation of political equality; the establishment of agriculture as
the basis of national prosperity; universal industry, inviolability of
private property, and the sacredness of family relations. These were
fundamental principles. Moses also renewed the Noahmic ideas of the
sacredness of human life. He further instituted rules for the education of
the people, that "sons may be as plants grown up in their youth, and
daughters as corner stones polished after the similitude of a palace."
Such were the elemental ideas of the Hebrew commonwealth, which have
entered, more or less, into all Christian civilizations. I can not enter
upon a minute detail of these primary laws. Each of the tribes formed a
separate state, and had a local administration of justice, but all alike
recognized the theocracy as the supreme and organic law. To the tribe of
Levi were assigned the duties of the priesthood, and the general oversight
of education and the laws. The members of this favored tribe were thus
priests, lawyers, teachers, and popular orators--a literary aristocracy
devoted to the cultivation of the sciences. The chief magistrate of the
united tribes was not prescribed, but Moses remained the highest
magistrate until his death, when the command was given to Joshua. Both
Moses and Joshua convened the states general, presided over their
deliberations, commanded the army, and decided all appeals in civil
questions. The office of chief magistrate was elective, and was held for
life, no salary was attached to it, no revenues were appropriated to it,
no tribute was raised for it. The chief ruler had no outward badges of
authority; he did not wear a diadem; he was not surrounded with a court.
His power was great as commander of the armies and president of the
assemblies, but he did not make laws or impose taxes. He was assisted by a
body of seventy elders--a council or senate, whose decisions, however, were
submitted to the congregation, or general body o