The gradation proceeds. These primary assemblies of the _Canton_ elect
deputies to the _Commune_,--one for every two hundred qualified
inhabitants. Here is the first medium put between the primary elector
and the representative legislator; and here a new turnpike is fixed for
taxing the rights of men with a second qualification: for none can be
elected into the _Commune_ who does not pay the amount of ten days'
labor. Nor have we yet done. There is still to be another
gradation.[121] These _Communes_, chosen by the _Canton_, choose to the
_Department_; and the deputies of the _Department_ choose their deputies
to the _National Assembly_. Here is a third barrier of a senseless
qualification. Every deputy to the National Assembly must pay, in direct
contribution, to the value of a _mark of silver_. Of all these
qualifying barriers we must think alike: that they are impotent to
secure independence, strong only to destroy the rights of men.
In all this process, which in its fundamental elements affects to
consider only _population_, upon a principle of natural right, there is
a manifest attention to _property_,--which, however just and reasonable
on other schemes, is on theirs perfectly unsupportable.
When they come to their third basis, that of _Contribution_, we find
that they have more completely lost sight of the rights of men. This
last basis rests _entirely_ on property.
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