Perverted Law Causes Conflict

by Frédéric Bastiat

　　As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from itstrue purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it-- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either toprotect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Politicalquestions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing.There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and thestruggle within will be no less furious. To know this, it is hardlynecessary to examine what transpires in the French and Englishlegislatures; merely to understand the issue is to know the answer.

　　Is there any need to offer proof that this odious perversion ofthe law is a perpetual source of hatred and discord; that it tends todestroy society itself? If such proof is needed, look at the UnitedStates [in 1850]. There is no country in the world where the law iskept more within its proper domain: the protection of every person'sliberty and property. As a consequence of this, there appears to beno country in the world where the social order rests on a firmerfoundation. But even in the United States, there are two issues --and only two -- that have always endangered the public peace.