146 THOMAS JEFFERSON 



luxurious idleness by taxes wrung from a groaning 

 peasantry. The state of things becomes so bad that 

 a radical reform is possible only at the cost of a fright- 

 ful paroxysm of anarchy ; and the traditions of per- 

 sonal independence are so completely lost that a 

 century of earnest struggle has not yet sufficed to 

 regain them. As a little American girl observed the 

 other day, as the net result of her first impressions of 

 Paris, " Every man here has to have some other man 

 to see that he does what he ought to do." 



Now in the history -of England perhaps the most 

 striking of all the many points of contrast with French 

 history consists in the position of the rural landholder. 

 The greatest proprietor in the country, though almost 

 sure to be a peer, does not belong to a different class 

 from the common people: his children are not peers, 

 and only one of them is likely to become so, except 

 perhaps for personal merit. There is no more promis- 

 ing career for the younger son than is offered by a 

 chance to represent the voters of his county in the 

 House of Commons, and thus there has never been 

 a sharp division between classes, as there used to be in 

 France. Noble families have always paid their full 

 share of the taxes. The small tenants have in many 

 cases been freeholders, and since the fourteenth cen- 

 tury the higher kinds of servile tenures, such as copy- 

 hold, have practically ceased to be servile. The higher 

 grades of copyholders and the smaller freeholders con- 

 stitute that class of yeomanry that has counted for so 

 much in history. Of old these small freeholders were 

 often known as "franklins," and one of their American 

 descendants, winning an immortal name, has illustrated 

 the many virtues, the boldness and thrift, the upright- 



