479. ARISTOCRACY, Uprooting.—[continued].
I considered four of
these bills [of the Revised Code of Virginia] * * * as forming a system by which every
fibre would be eradicated of ancient or future
aristocracy; and a foundation laid for a government
truly republican. The repeal of the
laws of entail would prevent the accumulation
and perpetuation of wealth, in select families,
and preserve the soil of the country from
being daily more and more absorbed in mortmain.
The abolition of primogeniture, and
equal partition of inheritances removed the
feudal and unnatural distinctions which made
one member of every family rich, and all the
rest poor, substituting equal partition, the
best of all Agrarian laws. The restoration of
the rights of conscience relieved the people
from taxation for the support of a religion not
theirs; for the Establishment was truly of
the religion of the rich, the dissenting sects
being entirely composed of the less wealthy
people; and these, by the bill for a general
education, would be qualified to understand
their rights, to maintain them, and to exercise
with intelligence their parts in self-government;
and all this would be effected without
the violation of a single natural right of
any one individual citizen.—
Autobiography. Washington ed. i, 49.
Ford ed., i, 68.
(1821)
