132 LAND AND LABOR. 



every great landlord was a sort of petty prince. His tenants 

 were his subjects. He was their judge, and in some respects 

 their legislator in peace, and their leader in war. He made 

 Avar at his own discretion, frequently against his neighbor, and 

 sometimes against his sovereign. The security of a landed 

 estate, therefore, the protection which its owner could afford 

 to those who dwelt on it, depended upon its greatness. To di- 

 vide it was to ruin it, and to expose every part of it to be op- 

 pressed and swallowed up by the incursions of its neighbors. 

 The law of primogeniture, therefore, came to take place, not 

 immediately, indeed, but in process of time, in the succession 

 of landed estates, for the same reasons that it has generally 

 taken place in that of monarchies, though not always at their 

 first institution Hence the origin of the right of pri- 

 mogeniture, and of what is called lineal succession. 



" Laws frequently continue in force long after the circum- 

 stances which first gave occasion to them, and which could alone 

 render them reasonable, are no more. In the present state of 

 Europe the proprietor of a single acre of land is as perfectly 

 secure of his possession as the proprietor of a hundred thousand. 

 The right of primogeniture, however, still continues, and as of 

 all institutions it is the fittest to support the pride of family 

 distinctions, it is likely to endure for many centuries. In every 

 other respect nothing can be more contrary to the real interest 

 of a numerous family than a right which, in order to enrich 

 one, beggars all the rest of the children. 



" Entails are the natural consequence of the law of primo- 

 geniture They are formed upon the most absurd 



of all suppositions, the supposition that every successive gene- 

 ration of men have not an equal right to the earth, and to all 

 that it possesses; but that the present generation should be 

 restrained and regulated according to the fancy of those who 

 died perhaps five hundred years ago." Wealth of Nations. 



This is the soil out of which have grown, and these 

 are the nurserymen who have cultivated and ma- 

 tured the laws and customs under which we are de- 



