84 ARGUMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



The range of thought by which the rights of ownership are limited 

 to a clear physical possession is characteristic of the barbaric age. The 

 first advances beyond it are promoted and accompanied by the begin- 

 nings of the conception of ownership as distinct from possession, and 

 the full development of that conception is the condition and accompa- 

 niment of the advanced stages of civilization. Its final expression is 

 in the main proposition which stands at the basis of our argument, 

 and was laid down at the beginning, namely, that every useful thing 

 the supply of which is limited should be the property of a determinate 

 owner, provided it is susceptible of exclusive appropriation. With 

 those things which are capable of actual possession at all times there 

 is no difficulty. The right of property once established by possession 

 continues, but in the case of those things not thus capable the law 



difficult to find new uninhabited lands; and on tlie other hand continued habitation 

 of the same place engendered a too rapid consumption of the natural fruits of the 

 earth for them to suffice for the subsistence of all the inhabitants and of their flocks* 

 without changing- locality, or without providing therefor by cultivation in a con- 

 stant and regular manner. 



"Thus agriculture was the natural result of the increase of the human species; 

 agriculture in turn favored population, and rendered necessary the establishment of 

 permanent property. For who would give himself the trouble to labor and to sow, 

 if he had not the certainty of reaping? 



''The field that I have cleared and sown should belong to me at least until I have 

 fathered the fruits that my labor has produced. I have the right to employ force to 

 repulse the unjust person who would wish to dispossess me of it and to drive away 

 him who should have seized it during my absence. I am regarded as continuing to 

 occupy the field from the first tilth to the harvest, though, in the interval, I do not 

 perform each moment exterior acts of occupation or of possession, because one can- 

 not suppose that. I have cleared, cultivated, and sown without intention to reap. 



"Sec. 69. This habitual occupation, which results from cultivation, preserves there- 

 fore the right of preference which I had acquired by first occupation. It is this habitual 

 occupation which civil law (le droit civil) extended and applied as a means of pre- 

 serving possession, in establishing as a maxim that possession is preserved by sole 

 intention, nudo animo. 



" Cultivation forms a stronger and more lasting tie than single occupation; it gives 

 a perfect right to the harvest. But how maintain a right (droit) other than by 

 doubtful contest before the foundation of the civil state? 



" Sec. 70. Moreover the right which cultivation gives and the effects of occupation 

 which are derived therefrom cease with the harvest if there are no new acts of cul- 

 tivation; for nothing would further indicate an intention to occupy. The field 

 which would cease to be cultivated would again become vacant and subject to the 

 right of the first occupant. 



"Agriculture alone, thorefore, was not sufficient to establish permanent property; 

 and since as before the invention and the usage of agriculture, property was acquired 

 by occupation, was preserved by continued or habitual possession, and was lost with 

 possession. This principle is still followed in regard to things which have remained 

 in the primitive state or negative community, such as savage animals. 



" Sec. 71. In order to give to property a nature of stability which wo observed in 



