at passes in the Chambers in
France and in England; it is enough to know how the question stands.

Is there any need to prove that this odious perversion of law is a
perpetual source of hatred and discord,--that it even tends to social
disorganisation? Look at the United States. There is no country in the
world where the law is kept more within its proper domain--which is, to
secure to every one his liberty and his property. Therefore, there is no
country in the world where social order appears to rest upon a more
solid basis. Nevertheless, even in the United States, there are two
questions, and only two, which from the beginning have endangered
political order. And what are these two questions? That of slavery and
that of tariffs; that is, precisely the only two questions in which,
contrary to the general spirit of this republic, law has taken the
character of a plunderer. Slavery is a violation, sanctioned by law, of
the rights of the person. Protection is a violation perpetrated by the
law upon the rights of property; and certainly it is very remarkable
that, in the midst of so many other debates, this double _legal
scourge_, the sorrowful inheritance of the Old World, should be the only
one which can, and perhaps will, cause the rupture of the Union. Indeed,
a more astounding fact, in the heart of society, cannot be conceived
than this:--That _law should have become an instrument of injustice_.
And if this fact occasions consequences so formidable to the United
States, where there is but one exception, what must it be with us in
Europe, where it is a principle--a system?

M. Montalembert, adopting the thought of a famous proclamation of M.
Carlier, said, "We must make war against socialism." And by socialism,
according to the definition of M. Charles Dupin, he meant plunder.

But what plunder did he mean? For there are two sorts--_extra-legal_ and
_legal plunder_.

As to extra-legal plunder, such as theft, or swindling, which is
defined, foreseen, and punished by the penal code, I do not think it can
be adorned by the name of socialism. It is not this which systematically
threatens the foundations of society. Besides, the war against this kind
of plunder has not waited for the signal of M. Montalembert or M.
Carlier. It has gone on since the beginning of the world; France was
carrying it on long before the revolution of February--long before the
appearance of socialism--with all the ceremonies of magistracy, poli