ccount of _direct_ contribution:
because the direct contribution must be assessed on wealth, real or
presumed; and that local wealth will itself arise from causes not local,
and which therefore in equity ought not to produce a local preference.

It is very remarkable, that, in this fundamental regulation which
settles the representation of the mass upon the direct contribution,
they have not yet settled how that direct contribution shall be laid,
and how apportioned. Perhaps there is some latent policy towards the
continuance of the present Assembly in this strange procedure. However,
until they do this, they can have no certain constitution. It must
depend at last upon the system of taxation, and must vary with every
variation in that system. As they have contrived matters, their taxation
does not so much depend on their constitution as their constitution on
their taxation. This must introduce great confusion among the masses; as
the variable qualification for votes within the district must, if ever
real contested elections take place, cause infinite internal
controversies.

To compare together the three bases, not on their political reason, but
on the ideas on which the Assembly works, and to try its consistency
with itself, we cannot avoid observing that the principle which the
committee call the basis of _population_ does not begin to operate from
the same point with the two other principles, called the bases of
_territory_ and of _contribution_, which are both of an aristocratic
nature. The consequence is, that, where all three begin to operate
together, there is the most absurd inequality produced by the operation
of the former on the two latter principles. Every canton contains four
square leagues, and is estimated to contain, on the average, 4,000
inhabitants, or 680 voters in the _primary assemblies_, which vary in
numbers with the population of the canton, and send _one deputy_ to the
_commune_ for every 200 voters. _Nine cantons_ make a _commune_.

Now let us take _a canton_ containing _a seaport town of trade_, or _a
great manufacturing town_. Let us suppose the population of this canton
to be 12,700 inhabitants, or 2,193 voters, forming _three primary
assemblies_, and sending _ten deputies_ to the _commune_.

Oppose to this _one_ canton _two_ others of the remaining eight in the
same commune. These we may suppose to have their fair population, of
4,000 inhabitants, and 680 voters each, or 8,000 inhabitan