tinuance, for the encouragement of industry;
some refuse it, as our aboriginal neighbors, whom we call barbarians.
The generations of men may be considered as bodies or corporations.
Each generation has the usufruct of the earth during the period of its
continuance. When it ceases to exist, the usufruct passes on to the
succeeding generation, free and unincumbered, and so on, successively,
from one generation to another for ever. We may consider each generation
as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind
themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than
the inhabitants of another country. Or the case may be likened to the
ordinary one of a tenant for life, who may hypothecate the land for his
debts, during the continuance of his usufruct; but at his death, the
reversioner (who is also for life only) receives it exonerated from
all burthen. The period of a generation, or the term of its life, is
determined by the laws of mortality, which, varying a little only in
different climates, offer a general average, to be found by observation.
I turn, for instance, to Buffon's tables, of twenty-three thousand nine
hundred and ninety-four deaths, and the ages at which they happened, and
I find that of the numbers of all ages living at one moment, half will
be dead in twenty-four years and eight months. Bat (leaving out minors,
who have not the power of self-government) of the adults (of twenty-one
years of age) living at one moment, a majority of whom act for the
society, one half will be dead in eighteen years and eight months. At
nineteen years then from the date of a contract, the majority of the
contractors are dead, and their contract with them. Let this general
theory be applied to a particular case. Suppose the annual births of
the State of New York to be twenty-three thousand nine hundred and
ninety-four: the whole number of its inhabitants, according to Buffon,
will be six hundred and seventeen thousand seven hundred and three, of
all ages. Of these there would constantly be two hundred and sixty-nine
thousand two hundred and eighty-six minors, and three hundred and
forty-eight thousand four hundred and seventeen adults, of which last,
one hundred and seventy-four thousand two hundred and nine will be a
majority. Suppose that majority, on the first day of the year 1794, had
borrowed a sum of money equal to the fee simple value of the State, and
to have consumed it in eating, drin