SUMMARY REMEDIES. 115 



from the English code, and made it the common law. 

 But the laws of entail and primogeniture were barred 

 as unsuitable to our conditions. Twenty-five years 

 ago it was deemed that the old laws which made 

 slaves of a portion of mankind had become wrongs 

 that should be abolished, and society washed them 

 out in oceans of blood. 



Hence, it can hardly be denied that it still remains 

 as much the prerogative and duty of society to abol- 

 ish vested wrongs as it is to protect vested rights, and 

 that the right to do so extends to the use of whatever 

 means may be necessary to accomplish the end de- 

 sired. The question of means, also, lies within the 

 judgment of society and the necessities of the case, as 

 well as the determination of what are rights and what 

 are wrongs. 



Having, as I believe, thus clearly and correctly de- 

 fined the true relations of man to the soil, I proceed 

 to the discussion of the matters which form the head- 

 ing to this chapter. That these questions are sur- 

 rounded with difficulties must be admitted ; and that 

 diverse opinions may be honestly entertained can not 

 be questioned. But keeping in view the principles 

 above laid down, and man's inalienable rights, one 

 need not go far wrong. 



It has been shown that, within the last twenty-five 

 years, there has been, in these United States, an as- 

 tounding development of the old feudal system of ten- 

 ant farming. That we already have in our country at 

 least a million and a quarter of tenant farm holdings ; 

 a number far greater than is found in Great Britain 

 and Ireland combined. It has also been shown that 



