Rights of
Man, Toi. ii., p. 304): "Portions of antiquity by proving
everything establish nothing. It is authority against
authority all the way, till we come to the divine origin of
the rights of man at the creation."--_Editor._.

Inequality of rights is created by a combination in one part of the
community to exclude another part from its rights. Whenever it be made
an article of a constitution, or a law, that the right of voting, or
of electing and being elected, shall appertain exclusively to persons
possessing a certain quantity of property, be it little or much, it is a
combination of the persons possessing that quantity to exclude those who
do not possess the same quantity. It is investing themselves with powers
as a self-created part of society, to the exclusion of the rest.

It is always to be taken for granted, that those who oppose an equality
of rights never mean the exclusion should take place on themselves; and
in this view of the case, pardoning the vanity of the thing, aristocracy
is a subject of laughter. This self-soothing vanity is encouraged by
another idea not less selfish, which is, that the opposers conceive they
are playing a safe game, in which there is a chance to gain and none
to lose; that at any rate the doctrine of equality includes _them_,
and that if they cannot get more rights than those whom they oppose and
would exclude, they shall not have less. This opinion has already been
fatal to thousands, who, not contented with _equal rights_, have sought
more till they lost all, and experienced in themselves the degrading
_inequality_ they endeavoured to fix upon others.

In any view of the case it is dangerous and impolitic, sometimes
ridiculous, and always unjust, to make property the criterion of the
right of voting. If the sum or value of the property upon which the
right is to take place be considerable, it will exclude a majority of
the people, and unite them in a common interest against the government
and against those who support it; and as the power is always with
the majority, they can overturn such a government and its supporters
whenever they please.

If, in order to avoid this danger, a small quantity of property be
fixed, as the criterion of the right, it exhibits liberty in disgrace,
by putting it in competition with accident and insignificance. When a
brood-mare shall fortunately produce a foal or a mule that, by being
worth the sum in question, shall co