All these
devices to produce an involuntary will were under the pretext of
relieving the more indigent classes; but the principle of voluntary
contribution, however delusive, being once established, these lower
classes first, and then all classes, were encouraged to throw off the
regular, methodical payments to the state, as so many badges of slavery.
Thus all regular revenue failing, these impostors, raising the
superstructure on the same cheats with which they had laid the
foundation of their greatness, and not content with a portion of the
possessions of the rich, confiscated the whole, and, to prevent them
from reclaiming their rights, murdered the proprietors. The whole of the
process has passed before our eyes, and been conducted, indeed, with a
greater degree of rapidity than could be expected.
My opinion, then, is, that public contributions ought only to be raised
by the public will. By the judicious form of our Constitution, the
public contribution is in its name and substance a grant. In its origin
it is truly voluntary: not voluntary according to the irregular,
unsteady, capricious will of individuals, but according to the will and
wisdom of the whole popular mass, in the only way in which will and
wisdom can go together. This voluntary grant obtaining in its progress
the force of a law, a general necessity, which takes away all merit, and
consequently all jealousy from individuals, compresses, equalizes, and
satisfies the whole, suffering no man to judge of his neighbor or to
arrogate anything to himself.
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