MARCH 27, 1792
For the National Gazette
March 27, 1792
PROPERTY.
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 a 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 a 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 Ire sparingly bestowed on a government
which, however scrupulously guarding ; he 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 raved 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 unalienable right. To guard a
man's house as his castle, to pay public and enforce private debts
with the most exact faith, call give no title to invade a man's
conscience which is more sacred than his castle, or to withhold 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 his 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 be the spirit of legislation where a manufacturer of
linen 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 in 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 in-
fluence 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.
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Printed copy (National Gazette, 29 Mar. 1792). While no Ms in his
hand has been found, JM initialed his essays, including this one, in a
bound volume of the National Gazette which is now in the Library of
Congress.
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: The Papers of James Madison Vol. 14, April 6,
1791-March 16, 1793, edited by Robert A. Rutland, University Press Of
Virginia, Charlottesville, pp 266-268)
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You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
HRSepCnS · Historical Reality SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
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.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
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USAF LT. COL (Ret) Buffman (Glen P. Goffin) wrote
"You pilot always into an unknown future;
facts are your only clue. Get the facts!"
That philosophy 'snipit' helped to get me, and my crew, through a good
many combat missions and far too many scary, inflight, emergencies.
It has also played a significant role in helping me to expose the
plethora of radical Christian propaganda and lies that we find at
almost every media turn.
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THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
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