His antipathy to excess wealth also led him to defend high taxes, especially on luxuries. A person had a “natural right” to all he earned that was necessary to support himself and his family, he wrote finance minister Robert Morris, “but all property superfluous to such purposes is the property of the public, who by their laws have created it.” Likewise, to Vaughan, he argued that cruel criminal laws had been wrought by those who sought to protect excess ownership of property. “Superfluous property is the creature of society,” he said. “Simple and mild laws were sufficient to guard the
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