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of itself secures good government ; we are therefore led to 

 another and further enquiry as to the nature of that pro- 

 prietorship, which has heretofore operated thus beneficially ; 

 and it is not necessary to stop and reason with the enthusi- 

 astic visionary, who, now and then, has denied the right of 

 the individual to the ownership of land ; who has told us, 

 that God first created the Earth and then made man to its 

 inheritance and sent him forth to till the ground for his 

 subsistence, and that each individual, under that Divine 

 ordination, had the right to enter upon and cultivate the 

 earth, and that he, who shall undertake to exercise exclu- 

 sive ownership, must show his title deed from the Almighty. 

 If we should assume that such speculations as these cannot 

 be logically answered, it would not necessarily follow that 

 they are therefore sound. In the great scheme of creation 

 and human existence, the profoundest student has made but 

 little advance. There are problems in life above and beyond 

 all logic and all reason. These are not to be solved by the 

 rules of metaphysical didactics, for they are of the mys- 

 teries of the Divine economy. Call it instinct, call it rea- 

 son, call it faith, we may be assured of the sound basis of 

 that, which the general judgment of civilized men, in all 

 times and under all circumstances, has taken to be true. We 

 must accept as truth what the natural and universal judg- 

 ment of man has assumed to be true ; if we cannot demon- 

 strate the truth, still, it were only folly and presumption to 

 deny or to doubt. Whether this is the true vindication of 

 the lawful proprietorship of land, it will be neither interest- 

 ing nor profitable here to enquire. Suffice it, that such pro- 

 prietorship has existed in some form, — whenever civil gov- 

 ernment has existed — always with marked relations to that 

 government. Our enquiry, now, is limited to the peculiar 

 relationship of landed proprietorship to our government. If 

 it were required of me to give in a word the origin of the 

 popular institutions which have made this government so 

 near the model government of Christendom — I should not 



