DESCENT OF LAND. 433 



DESCENT OF LAND. 



From an Address before the Worcester Society, ScplcmhQr 



22, 1853. 



BY HON. GEOROE S. BOUTWELL. 



Agriculture, not immediately, but in the future, is interested 

 ia the policy of the government. I have said that it Tvas the 

 duty of the government to establish and maintain institutions of 

 general and special learning, enact proper laws for the descent 

 and distribution of land, and also to foster a liberal conimercial 

 system. In regard to institutions of learning, Massachusetts 

 has done so much, if not always her duty, that there is no dis- 

 position and little cause for complaint. 



The division, possession and descent of land, have furnished 

 many difficult questions in economy, politics and social life. 

 The government and people of Rome were often violently agi- 

 tated by the disputes which arose concerning the public lands ; 

 and the elections of consuls and tribunes were generally deter- 

 mined by these questions. And in this country the land re- 

 formers have thrown new elements into the political cauldron, 

 which, without their aid, would at any moment feast the eyes 

 of the witches of Macbeth. The monopoly of the land by the 

 nobles and church was one of the causes of the Revolution of 

 1789 in France, and the same cause has often threatened the 

 peace of Great Britain. I do not now, however, intend to dis- 

 cuss it politically, but as a moral and industrial question. It is 

 desirable morally, politically and socially, that a large proportion 

 of the people should be landholders, but it docs not therefore 

 follow, as some would have us believe, that every man has a 

 right to an equal portion, or a portion of the earth. For if so, 

 why has he not a right to a horse or an ox wherewith to culti- 

 vate it ? And if to a portion of land described by metes and 

 bounds, why not to a portion of the seas, lakes and rivers ? 

 But no — neither the earth, nor the sea, nor any part thereof, 

 was created for any particular man, but for the generations of 

 men, through long successive ages, destined to possess, occupy 

 and use, so that each shall work out the highest form of civili- 

 zation of which it is capable. 

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