The writings of James Madison, comprising his public papers and his private correspondence, including numerous letters and documents now for the first time printed. |
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PROPERTY.
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 | The writings of James Madison, |  |
PROPERTY.[58]
This term in its particular application means "that dominion
which one man claims and exercises over the external
things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual."
In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces every thing
to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and
which leaves to every one else the like advantage.
In the former sense, a man's land, or merchandize, or money
is called his property.
In the latter sense, a man has property in his opinions and
the free communication of them.
He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions,
and in the profession and practice dictated by them.
He has property very dear to him in the safety and liberty
of his person.
He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties
and free choice of the objects on which to employ them.
In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property,
he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.
Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is
duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person,
his faculties or his possessions.
Where there is an excess of liberty, the effect is the same,
tho' from an opposite cause.
Government is instituted to protect property of every sort;
as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals,
as that which the term particularly expresses. This being
the end of government, that alone is a just government, which
impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.
According to this standard of merit, the praise of affording
a just security to property, should be sparingly bestowed on
a government which, however scrupulously guarding the possessions
of individuals, does not protect them in the enjoyment
and communication of their opinions, in which they
have an equal, and in the estimation of some, a more valuable
property.
More sparingly should this praise be allowed to a government,
where a man's religious rights are violated by penalties,
or fettered by tests, or taxed by a hierarchy. Conscience is
the most sacred of all property; other property depending in
part on positive law, the exercise of that, being a natural and
inalienable right. To guard a man's house as his castle, to
pay public and enforce private debts with the most exact
faith, can give no title to invade a man's conscience which is
more sacred than his castle, or to withold from it that debt
of protection, for which the public faith is pledged, by the
very nature and original conditions of the social pact.
That is not a just government, nor is property secure under
it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety
and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one
class of citizens for the service of the rest. A magistrate
issuing warrants to a press gang, would be in his proper functions
in Turkey or Indostan, under appellations proverbial of
the most compleat despotism.
That is not a just government, nor is property secure under
it, where arbitrary restrictions, exemptions, and monopolies
deny to part of its citizens that free use of their faculties, and
free choice of their occupations, which not only constitute
their property in the general sense of the word; but are the
means of acquiring property strictly so called. What must
cloth is forbidden to bury his own child in a linen shroud, in
order to favour his neighbour who manufactures woolen cloth;
where the manufacturer and wearer of woolen cloth are again
forbidden the economical use of buttons of that material, in
favor of the manufacturer of buttons of other materials!
A just security to property is not afforded by that government
under which unequal taxes oppress one species of
property and reward another species: where arbitrary taxes
invade the domestic sanctuaries of the rich, and excessive taxes
grind the faces of the poor; where the keenness and competitions
of want are deemed an insufficient spur to labor, and
taxes are again applied by an unfeeling policy, as another
spur; in violation of that sacred property, which Heaven, in
decreeing man to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow,
kindly reserved to him, in the small repose that could be
spared from the supply of his necessities.
If there be a government then which prides itself on maintaining
the inviolability of property; which provides that
none shall be taken directly even for public use without indemnification
to the owner, and yet directly violates the property
which individuals have in their opinions, their religion,
their persons, and their faculties; nay more, which indirectly
violates their property, in their actual possessions, in the
labor that acquires their daily subsistence, and in the hallowed
remnant of time which ought to relieve their fatigues
and soothe their cares, the inference will have been anticipated,
that such a government is not a pattern for the United
States.
If the United States mean to obtain or deserve the full
praise due to wise and just governments, they will equally
respect the rights of property, and the property in rights:
they will rival the government that most sacredly guards the
former; and by repelling its example in violating the latter,
will make themselves a pattern to that and all other
governments.
| The writings of James Madison, | |