IV 

 THOMAS JEFFERSON 



THE CONSERVATIVE REFORMER 



IN the development of English civilization on its 

 political side there have been few agencies more 

 potent than those represented by the independent 

 yeomanry and the country squire. In the history of 

 such a country as France, until very recent times, the 

 small rural freeholder scarcely plays a part. There 

 under the old regime we see the powerful nobleman 

 in his grim chateau, surrounded by villages of peas- 

 antry holding their property by a servile tenure. The 

 nobleman is exempt from taxation, his children are all 

 nobles and share in this exemption, so that they con- 

 stitute a class quite distinct from the common people 

 and having but little sympathy with them. The only 

 middle class is to be found in the large walled towns, 

 whose burghers have acquired from the sovereign 

 sundry privileges and immunities in exchange, per- 

 haps, for money furnished to aid him in putting down 

 rebellious vassals. Representative assemblies are 

 weak and their means of curbing the crown very 

 limited, so that early in the seventeenth century they 

 fall into disuse ; and as the crown gradually conquers 

 its vassals and annexes their domains, the result is at 

 length an extremely centralized and oppressive des- 

 potism in which the upper classes are supported in 



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