decedent on the condition of a payment of his debts: but that between
society and society, or generation and generation, there is no municipal
obligation, no umpire, but the law of nature.

The interest of the national debt of France being, in fact, but a two
thousandth part of its rent-roll, the payment of it is practicable
enough; and so becomes a question merely of honor or of expediency. But
with respect to future debts, would it not be wise and just for that
nation to declare in the constitution they are forming, that neither the
legislature nor the nation itself, can validly contract more debt than
they may pay within their own age, or within the term of thirty-four
years? And that all future contracts shall be deemed void, as to what
shall remain unpaid at the end of thirty-four years from their date?
This would put the lenders, and the borrowers also, on their guard. By
reducing, too, the faculty of borrowing within its natural limits, it
would bridle the spirit of war, to which too free a course has been
procured by the inattention of money-lenders to this law of nature, that
succeeding generations are not responsible for the preceding.

On similar ground it may be proved, that no society can make a perpetual
constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the
living generation: they may manage it, then, and what proceeds from it,
as they please, during their usufruct. They are masters, too, of their
own persons, and consequently may govern them as they please. But
persons and property make the sum of the objects of government. The
constitution and the laws of their predecessors are extinguished then,
in their natural course, with those whose will gave them being. This
could preserve that being, till it ceased to be itself, and no longer.
Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of
thirty-four years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force and