49 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Hindus, for example, hold tliat rights ought to be apportioned 

 according to caste. In the Mohammedan world the doctrine of 

 fate completely overtops and stifles the doctrine of equal rights. 

 A considerable portion of the human race hold that women have 

 no rights. A majority of the civilized races hold that woman's 

 rights are inferior to man's rights, and we ourselves do not con- 

 sider them embraced in the term "popular sovereignty." Yet 

 they are one half of the human race, and the more meritorious 

 half.* 



I shall assume, without further argument, that the rights of 

 life, liberty, and property, including land, all rest upon experience, 

 translated, after infinite trouble, conflict, and bloodshed, into law, 

 and this notwithstanding any opinions of the Supreme Court that 

 can be quoted to the contrary. 



A title to anything, land or personal property, is defined to be 

 "a just cause of exclusive ownership," and a title-deed is the 

 accepted evidence of the same. The law tells us what shall con- 

 stitute just cause of exclusive ownership and what shall constitute 

 good evidence of it. It is the same law, as to its origin, that fixes, 

 prescribes, defines, and enforces all rights. 



The law has prescribed in this country the following among 

 other things : (1) That human life shall not be taken except in 

 self-defense or by due process of law ; (2) that private property 

 shall not be taken for public use without just compensation ; (3) 

 that slavery or involuntary servitude shall not exist except as 

 a punishment for crime this is placed last because it was enacted 

 last. 



On the ground of salus populi suprema lex the state holds com- 

 mand over the lives and fortunes of its citizens, and to this sover- 

 eignty land forms no exception. The state may draft the citizen 

 into its army or navy, and send him into battle where he may be 

 killed. It may likewise take his landed property or his personal 

 property. It is the sole judge of the occasions and the reasons. 

 But it must act in accordance with its own constitution. It must 

 not arbitrarily choose A, B, and C to go to the wars. It must not 

 take private property without just compensation. If it does these 

 things, it subverts itself and plunges into chaos. 



There is no peculiar sacredness about land titles as distin- 

 guished from other titles. If the annual tax on land is not paid, 



* Jeremy Bentham has given an analysis of the phrases in common use which are 

 synonymous with law of nature, such as moral sense, common sense, law of reason, natural 

 justice, natural equity, and fitness of things. " Common sense," he says, " means a sense 

 of some kind or another which the author affirms is possessed by all mankind ; tbe 

 sense of those whose sense is not the same as his being struck out of the account as not 

 worth taking. ... If such a man," he adds, " happens to possess the advantages of style, 

 his book may do a considerable deal of mischief before the nothingness of it is understood." 

 ("Principles of Morals and Legislation," chap, ii.) 



