In the other sense of the word _State_, by which is understood the _Supreme Government_ only, I must observe this upon the question: that to exclude whole classes of men entirely from this _part_ of government cannot be considered as _absolute slavery_. It only implies a lower and degraded state of citizenship: such is (with more or less strictness) the condition of all countries in which an hereditary nobility possess the exclusive rule. This may be no bad mode of government,--provided that the personal authority of individual nobles be kept in due bounds, that their cabals and factions are guarded against with a severe vigilance, and that the people (who have no share in granting their own money) are subjected to but light impositions, and are otherwise treated with attention, and with indulgence to their humors and prejudices.
The republic of Venice is one of those which strictly confines all the great functions and offices, such as are truly _stale_ functions and _state_ offices, to those who by hereditary right or admission are noble Venetians. But there are many offices, and some of them not mean nor unprofitable, (that of Chancellor is one,) which are reserved for the _cittadini_. Of these all citizens of Venice are capable. The inhabitants of the _terra firma_, who are mere subjects of conquest, that is, as you express it, under the state, but "not a part of it," are not, however, subjects in so very rigorous a sense as not to be capable of numberless subordinate employments. It is, indeed, one of the advantages attending the narrow bottom of their aristocracy, (narrow as compared with their acquired dominions, otherwise broad enough,) that an exclusion from such employments cannot possibly be made amongst their subjects. There are, besides, advantages in states so constituted, by which those who are considered as of an inferior race are indemnified for their exclusion from the government, and from nobler employments. In all these countries, either by express law, or by usage more operative, the noble castes are almost universally, in their turn, excluded from commerce, manufacture, farming of land, and in general from all lucrative civil professions. The nobles have the monopoly of honor; the plebeians a monopoly of all the means of acquiring wealth. Thus some sort of a balance is formed among conditions; a sort of compensation is furnished to those who, in a _limited sense_, are excluded from the government of the state.