is case, therefore, _except force be
interposed_, they govern themselves."

The history of other nations may teach us how favorable to public
liberty are the division of the soil into small freeholds, and a system
of laws, of which the tendency is, without violence or injustice, to
produce and to preserve a degree of equality of property. It has been
estimated, if I mistake not, that about the time of Henry the Seventh
four fifths of the land in England was holden by the great barons and
ecclesiastics. The effects of a growing commerce soon afterwards began
to break in on this state of things, and before the Revolution, in 1688,
a vast change had been wrought. It may be thought probable, that, for
the last half-century, the process of subdivision in England has been
retarded, if not reversed; that the great weight of taxation has
compelled many of the lesser freeholders to dispose of their estates,
and to seek employment in the army and navy, in the professions of civil
life, in commerce, or in the colonies. The effect of this on the British
constitution cannot but be most unfavorable. A few large estates grow
larger; but the number of those who have no estates also increases; and
there may be danger, lest the inequality of property become so great,
that those who possess it may be dispossessed by force; in other words,
that the government may be overturned.

A most interesting experiment of the effect of a subdivision of property
on government is now making in France. It is understood, that the law
regulating the transmission of property in that country, now divides it,
real and personal, among all the children equally, both sons and
daughters; and that there is, also, a very great restraint on the power
of making dispositions of property by will. It has been supposed, that
the effects of this might probably be, in time, to break up the soil
into such small subdivisions, that the proprietors would be too poor to
resist the encroachments of executive power. I think far otherwise. What
is lost in individual wealth will be more than gained in numbers, in
intelligence, and in a sympathy of sentiment. If, indeed, only one or a
few landholders were to resist the crown, like the barons of England,
they must, of course, be great and powerful landholders, with multitudes
of retainers, to promise success. But if the proprietors of a given
extent of territory are summoned to resistance, there is no reason to
believe that such re