grundlinien.de

306

With regard to its political position and significance, this Estate is more precisely constituted in that its wealth is established as independent alike of the wealth of the state and of the insecurity of trade, the pursuit of profit, and the mutability of possession in general — as well as of the favor of the executive power and of the favor of the multitude — and is established even against its own arbitrary will, in that the members of this Estate called to this determination lack the right, which the other citizens possess, partly to dispose freely of their entire property, and partly to see it pass to their children according to the equality of love; the wealth thus becomes an inalienable, entailed patrimony, encumbered with the right of primogeniture.

DE

Comments

One response to “306”

  1. Eduard Gans (Additions) Avatar
    Eduard Gans (Additions)

    This estate has a will that subsists more on its own account. On the whole, the estate of landed proprietors will differentiate itself into its more cultivated part and the peasant estate. Meanwhile, opposed to both kinds stand the estate of trade, as dependent on and directed toward need, and the universal estate, as essentially dependent on the state. The security and firmness of this estate can be further increased through the institution of entail, which, however, is desirable only from a political point of view, for it involves a sacrifice made for a political end, namely that the firstborn may live independently. The justification of entail lies in this, that the state should not reckon on a mere possibility of disposition, but on something necessary. Now disposition is of course not bound to a fortune, but the relatively necessary connection is that whoever has an independent fortune is not restricted by external circumstances and can thus come forward unhindered and act for the state. Where, however, political institutions are lacking, the establishment and favoring of entails is nothing but a fetter placed upon the freedom of private right, to which the political sense must be added, or else it moves toward its own dissolution.

Leave a Reply