Was it to be expected that
they would attend to the stability of property, whose existence had
always depended upon whatever rendered property questionable, ambiguous,
and insecure? Their objects would be enlarged with their elevation; but
their disposition, and habits, and mode of accomplishing their designs
must remain the same.
Well! but these men were to be tempered and restrained by other
descriptions, of more sober minds and more enlarged understandings. Were
they, then, to be awed by the supereminent authority and awful dignity
of a handful of country clowns, who have seats in that assembly, some of
whom are said not to be able to read and write,--and by not a greater
number of traders, who, though somewhat more instructed, and more
conspicuous in the order of society, had never known anything beyond
their counting-house? No! both these descriptions were more formed to be
overborne and swayed by the intrigues and artifices of lawyers than to
become their counterpoise. With such a dangerous disproportion, the
whole must needs be governed by them.
To the faculty of law was joined a pretty considerable proportion of the
faculty of medicine. This faculty had not, any more than that of the
law, possessed in France its just estimation. Its professors, therefore,
must have the qualities of men not habituated to sentiments of dignity.
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