• ORAL ARGUMENT OF JAMES C. CARTER, ESQ. 159 



What is it? I think it is well expressed by one or two writers to whom 

 I will call attention. It is very hard to define what property is. We 

 can feel it; it is hard to define it. 



Savigiiy says (page 51 of our printed Argument): "Property accord- 

 ing to its true nature, is a widening of individual power. It is, as far 

 as tangible things are concerned, an extension of the individual to 

 some part of the material world, so that it is affected by his personality". 



And the i^hilosopher Locke expresses the same idea. He says: 



The fruit or venison -wliicli nonrislies tliewild. Indian must be his, iiucl so his, 



i.e., a part of hhn, tliat another can no longer have any right; to it, etc. (Civil 

 Goverunieut, CIi. V, \S 25.) 



A German \^Titer of great distinction, Iheriug, gives substantially 

 the same definition of it: 



In making the object my own I stamped it vfith the mark of mj' own person ; who- 

 ever attac]£s it attacks me; the blow struck it strikes me, for I am present in it. 

 Property is but the periphery of my jierson extended to things. (Ihering, quoted by 

 George 13. Newcomb, Pol. Science Qnarterlj^, vol. 1, p. 604.) 



That is a very happy definition of what property really is. It is a 

 ])art of the person, and whoever touches the property of a person 

 touches him. Whoever touches the property of a nation touches the 

 nation itself. 



That is a clesciii>tion of the thing itself. Now, what is the right on 

 which it is founded? In going into this inquiry as to what the right of 

 l)roperty is founded upon, I am not going to deal with any abstract 

 question; nor am I going to deal with questions that have not been 

 considered as within the province of jurists. On the contrary, I am 

 entering on a question which has been, from the first, considered i)ecul- 

 iarly the province of jurists, and especially of jurists dealing with the 

 law of nature and the law of nations. The great writers upon that 

 law, beginning with Grotius, have considered that no ethical system 

 could be complete, and, consequently, that no system of the law of 

 nature and nations could be complete, which did not deal with the insti- 

 tution of property and the foundations upon which it it rested. And 

 in what I am going to say, I shall do little more than recall views which 

 have been before stated and developed by very many different writers. 

 Possibly I may carry them a little further in the development; but for 

 the most part I shall only repeat what has been said before. 



These writers, in endeavoring to ascertain the foundations of the insti- 

 tution of property, take first into consideration its universal i)revalence 

 everywhere all over the globe; and in every stage of human history, 

 and then recognize in this the truth that it is and must be founded 

 upon the facts of man's nature, and the circumstances, the environment, 

 in which he is j>laced. They tell us that man is by nature a social ani- 

 mal, and must live in society, and that society is not ])ossible unless 

 we can have order and peace. Wherever there is anything desirable 

 to men, wherever there is an object of human desire, of wdiich the sup- 

 ply is limited — where there is not enough for all — there will necessarily 

 be struggle and contention for the possession of it; and if there were 

 nothing to prevent it, those who had the most power would engross 

 the most valuable things of the world. There would be constant war- 

 fare for the i^ossessiou of desirable things where there was not enough 

 for all, unless there were some rule and some means by which that w^ar- 

 fare should be i>reveiited. Therefore, property at once becomes a neces- 

 sity, in order that there may exist peace and order in human society. 



We may say, therefore, tliat the foundation of projjerty, its first and 

 original fpujid.atiou, v\'as in necessity^ the necessity of ijeace and order^ 



