Property is surely a right of mankind as really as liberty. ... but the time would not be long before courage and enterprise would come, and pretexts be invented by degrees, ... in sharing it equally with its present possessors. Debts would be abolished first; taxes laid heavy on the rich, and not at all on the others; and at last a downright equal division of every thing be demanded, and voted. What would be the consequence of this? The idle, the vicious, the intemperate, would ... sell and spend all their share, and then demand a new division of those who purchased from them. ... anarchy and tyranny commence.
