The Law

...because every vote commits and affects the entire community; because the community certainly has the right to demand some guarantees regarding the acts on which its well-being and its existence depend.

I know what might be said in response. I also know what could be rejoined. This is not the place to exhaust such a controversy. What I want to point out is that this very controversy (as well as most political questions) which agitates, impassions, and overturns nations, would lose almost all its importance if the Law had always been what it ought to be.

Indeed, if the Law were limited to ensuring respect for all Persons, all Liberties, all Properties; if it were only the organization of the individual Right of self-defense, the obstacle, the check, the punishment opposed to all oppressions and all plunder original: "spoliations." Bastiat uses this term to describe the act of using the law to take the property of others without their consent., do we believe that we would argue much, among citizens, regarding a more or less universal suffrage? Do we believe that it would call into question the greatest of goods: public peace? Do we believe that the excluded classes would not wait peacefully for their turn? Do we believe that the admitted classes would be very jealous of their privilege? And is it not