o the selfish views of the legislators, or by
the mode of collecting the taxes so imposed.

Neither a tenant who occupies an extensive farm, nor a merchant or
manufacturer who may have embarked a large capital in their respective
pursuits, can ever, according to this system, attain the preemption
of a citizen. On the other hand, any upstart, who has, by succession
or management, got possession of a few acres of land or a miserable
tenement, may exultingly exercise the functions of a citizen, although
perhaps neither possesses a hundredth part of the worth or property of a
simple mechanic, nor contributes in any proportion to the exigencies of
the State.

The contempt in which the old government held mercantile pursuits, and
the obloquy that attached on merchants and manufacturers, contributed
not a little to its embarrassments, and its eventual subversion; and,
strange to tell, though the mischiefs arising from this mode of conduct
are so obvious, yet an article is proposed for your adoption which has a
manifest tendency to restore a defect inherent in the monarchy.

I shall now proceed to the second article of the same Title, with which
I shall conclude my remarks.

The second article says, "Every French soldier, who shall have served
one or more campaigns in the cause of liberty, is deemed a citizen
of the republic, without any respect or reference to other
qualifications."(1)

It would seem, that in this Article the Committee were desirous of
extricating themselves from a dilemma into which they had been plunged
by the preceding article. When men depart from an established principle
they are compelled to resort to trick and subterfuge, always shifting
their means to preserve the unity of their objects; and as it rarely
happens that the first expedient makes amends for the prostitution of
principle, they must call in aid a second, of a more flagrant nature,
to supply the deficiency of the former. In this manner legislators go
on accumulating error upon error, and artifice upon artifice, until
the mass becomes so bulky and incongruous, and their embarrassment so
desperate, that they are compelled, as their last expedient, to resort
to the very principle they had violated. The Committee were precisely
in this predicament when they framed this article; and to me, I confess,
their conduct appears specious rather than efficacious.(2)

1 This article eventually stood: "All Frenchmen who shall
have made on