not of right. It may be said that the succeeding generation exercising,
in fact, the power of repeal, this leaves them as free as if the
constitution or law had been expressly limited to thirty-four years
only. In the first place, this objection admits the right, in proposing
an equivalent. But the power of repeal is not an equivalent. It might
be, indeed, if every form of government were so perfectly contrived,
that the will of the majority could always be obtained, fairly and
without impediment. But this is true of no form. The people cannot
assemble themselves; their representation is unequal and vicious.
Various checks are opposed to every legislative proposition. Factions
get possession of the public councils, bribery corrupts them, personal
interests lead them astray from the general interests of their
constituents; and other impediments arise, so as to prove to every
practical man, that a law of limited duration is much more manageable
than one which needs a repeal.

This principle, that the earth belongs to the living and not to the
dead, is of very extensive application and consequences in every
country, and most especially in France. It enters into the resolution of
the questions, whether the nation may change the descent of lands
holden in tail; whether they may change the appropriation of lands given
anciently to the church, to hospitals, colleges, orders of chivalry,
and otherwise in perpetuity whether they may abolish the charges
and privileges attached on lands, including the whole catalogue,
ecclesiastical and feudal; it goes to hereditary offices, authorities,
and jurisdictions, to hereditary orders, distinctions, and appellations,
to perpetual monopolies in commerce, the arts, or sciences, with a long
train of _et ceteras_; and it renders the question of reimbursement,
a question of generosity and not of right. In all these cases,
the legislature of the day could authorize such appropriations and