ABSTRACT
Losing one's possessions is a punishment more severe than banishment; there must be some cases in which, in proportion to the crime, everything or a part of one's possessions should be taken, and some where none at all should be taken. The loss of everything will occur when banishment is ordered by law, an action which eradicates all relationships between society and the delinquent citizen; a case of living death for the citizen, and as far as the body politic is concerned, it must produce the same effect as actual death. It would seem then that all his possessions should be passed on to his legitimate heirs rather than to the sovereign because banishment is the same as death in respect to the body politic. Confiscation puts a price on the heads of the weak, makes the innocent suffer the punishment of a criminal and places those same innocents in the desperate situation of having to commit crimes.
