:; i 



LAND. 



another family or tribe to usurp these pastures, just 

 a hunters outsider il a violation of their priviU -< -s. 

 when their hunting grounds are contracted by the 

 encroachment of settlers, or by the incursions of 

 strangers in pursuit of game. Hence Abraham se- 

 parated fnnu Lot. (Genesis, xiii.) The various 

 treaties of the Kuropean settlers with the savages of 

 the American wilds clearly show how deeply the 

 idea of the rights of tribes and families in the soil is 

 rooted in nature, and how fully it is developed long 

 before ihe rude inhabitants have united under a re- 

 gular government. 



2. The division of territory among private owners 

 takes place much later, is not inseparably connected 

 with the purposes of a state, and is incapable, at any 

 time, of absolute perfection. We must remember, 

 on the one liand, that a division of this nature takes 

 place before the idea of the true purposes of a state 

 is matured ; and, on the other, experience shows, that 

 even a very regularly constituted state may exist in 

 connexion with the original community of property 

 in the soil. But the assertion of the right of private 

 property in the soil, before the assemblage of men, 

 for common purposes, lias given rise to states, is so 

 rare, that perhaps history offers no precedent of it, 

 except in the case of some Robinson Crusoe, who 

 has claimed the ownership of some unappropriated 

 territory on which chance had thrown him, and, what 

 is more to the purpose, a proper ownership in the 

 soil can arise only in and for the purposes of a state ; 

 and this right is always different from that which 

 obtains in regard to movable property. The con- 

 fusion of these two relations, in law so essentially 

 different, arises from the circumstance that the same 

 name is applied to both, and is the source of those 

 numerous errors, the evil consequences of which are 

 felt in every vein of the body politic. 



3. Kant lias particularly shown that genuine pro- 

 perty (and a possession not dependent on actual 

 occupation, with all the consequences that result from 

 it) arises first in and by the state. Before him, men 

 were led away, by the customary ideas of positive law, 

 to regard the occupation of property as an act by which 

 an object of nature becomes, once for all, united with 

 the person of the possessor, in such a manner that 

 every other person must abstain from the use of it, even 

 though the owner should leave it unemployed (if it be 

 a piece of land wholly uncultivated), or be without 

 the ability suitably to use it (as if it includes a large 

 district). But there is no reason, aside from the 

 positive law of the land, why one man should be 

 authorized to bind for ever the will of others ; and it 

 is impossible in regard to the soil, because, in this 

 way, it would be made for ever dependent upon the 

 will of the first possessor, and others might be excluded 

 from the very means of existence. Hence private 

 property in land is among the institutions which are 

 first established by the state; but it must be observed, 

 that these still remain subject to alteration whenever 

 the good of the state seems to require it. Apart 

 from the state, a man has no unalienable property 

 but his own person, and a claim upon others for a 

 regard to his personal dignity, which arises from the 

 worth of his nature, and makes it unlawful for others 

 to use him merely as the instrument of their own pur- 

 poses, or to avail themselves of his powers, or the 

 fruits of them, against his will. Labour is therefore 

 the foundation of property, apart from the institutions 

 of the state ; and its visible sign, that is, the alter- 

 ation of form produced by it, gives notice to others 

 that they are to abstain from the use of the article 

 thus appropriated. By labour a man connects a part of 

 himself with a given subject ; but this relation is not 

 eternal ; it continues only while the form impressed 

 on it by such owner remains ; for the labour bestowed 



by men on natural materials is only an alteration of tJi 

 relation of form and place; it leads to no new product. 

 Man can create nothing new. This privilege nature 

 has reserved to herself by eternal and unchangeable 

 laws; but man can only alter the forms and relations of 

 natural productions, and bring them into connexions 

 in which the creative power of nature shall become 

 serviceable to his ends. He impresses upon things 

 the stamp of his own ingenuity, and exercises that 

 dominion of mind over matter, the extension of which 

 is an important part of his destiny. There is there- 

 fore a kind of property independent of that given by 

 the institutions of the state, but not unalienable. As 

 a, man possesses nothing in nature, but the labour 

 which he incorporates with it, that is, the form which 

 he gives it, this right ceases when the effects of the 

 labour are lost, and the form vanishes. Nature has 

 a tendency to efface the impressions of art ; the, 

 human form loses its symmetry, the tamed beast 

 returns to his native wildness, and the cultivated 

 field to its former sterility. The effects of labour are 

 lost; and if a second now appropriates the object, 

 when it is relinquished by the first, he deprives no 

 one of the fruits of his labour, and there is no question 

 of property. 



4. This view of the subject shows that the state 

 is not to be looked upon as a combination of landed 

 proprietors ; for they have become landed proprietors 

 only by means of the state itself; and it is just as 

 absurd to derive the existence of the state from some- 

 thing that received existence from it, as to consider 

 nobility older than sovereignty, and independent of 

 it. It is likewise unfounded in an historical point of 

 view. In the history of all states, we return with the 

 fullest certainty, to the period when the soil was 

 common to all the inhabitants, and to the subsequen* 

 period, when it was regarded as the rightful posses 

 sion of a certain family or community. The family 

 occupation is obviously the oldest form of restricted 

 possession, which unfolded itself first in the patri- 

 archal government, and is to be seen in the original 

 constitution of almost every state. The origin of 

 family property can be traced only to the immediate 

 gift of a higher power. Thus Jehovah promised to 

 the family of Abraham the land lying on the banks of 

 the Jordan ; and the North American tribes ascribe 

 the right of the red men to their hunting grounds to 

 a special gift of the Great Spirit. Hence we see the 

 reason why, in all the early divisions of territory, 

 some important portion of the land, or a permanent 

 tax, as the tenth of all the fruits, was preserved for 

 the service of the national deities. From common 

 property there arose, under the patriarchal dominion, 

 the exclusive right of the founder of the family ; for, 

 while the oldest member is the representative of the 

 whole, it belongs to him to divide the common soil 

 among the different members. If the population 

 increases, and circumstances prevent the sending out 

 of colonies, or the wandering of a part of the family, 

 nothing remains but to procure from the ground a 

 richer supply of provisions by regular cultivation ; 

 and, when the wandering tribes, who before sub- 

 sisted by hunting, submit to the more arduous labours 

 of agriculture, a division of the territory into portions, 

 which are secured to individuals by conditions more, 

 or less settled, cannot be avoided. But the forms 

 under which this important change takes place are 

 almost infinite. Sometimes the land is divided among 

 individuals every year ; sometimes it is assigned to 

 the principal members of the stock, the elders of the 

 tribe, and by them subdivided among the inferior 

 members. This is seldom done, however, without a 

 compensation. The compensation, for the most part, 

 consists of a certain part of the productions of the 

 soil, or of a sum of money, fixed without regard 



