d by labor. Except where
slavery is legalized, it is admitted that the laborer owns the value he
creates. If it be an article made or produced wholly by himself, it is his
to keep, to use, to give, or to sell. If his labor be bestowed on
materials not his own, or if he be one of a body of workmen, he is
entitled to a fair equivalent for the labor he contributes.

*Property in land*, no doubt, originated in labor. A man was deemed the
proprietor of so much ground as he tilled. In a sparse population there
could have been no danger of mutual interference; and in every country,
governments must have been instituted before there was a sufficiently
close occupation of the soil to occasion collisions and conflicts among
the occupants. The governments of the early ages, in general, confirmed
the titles founded in productive occupancy, and treated the unoccupied
land as the property of the state, either to be held in common, to be
ceded to individual owners in reward of loyalty or services, or to be sold
on the public account.

It is manifest that the *security of property is essential to civilization
and progress*. Men would labor only for the needs of the day, if they
could not retain and enjoy the fruits of their labor; nor would they be at
pains to invent or actualize industrial improvements of any kind, if they
had no permanent interest in the results of such improvements. Then, too,
if there were no protection for property, there could be no accumulation
of capital, and without capital there could be no enterprise, no combined
industries, no expenditure in faith of a remote, yet certain profit. Nor
yet can the ends of a progressive civilization be answered by a community
of goods and gains. Wherever this experiment has been tried, it has been
attended by a decline of industrial energy and capacity; and where there
has not been absolute failure, there have been apathy, stupidity, and a
decreasing standard of intelligence. In fine, there is in man's bodily and
mental powers a certain _vis inertiae_, which can be efficiently aroused
only by the stimulus of personal interest in the results of industry,
ingenuity, and prudence.

The right of property implies *the right of the owner, while he lives*, to
hold, enjoy, or dispose of his possessions in such way as may please him.
But his ownership necessarily ceases at death; and what was his becomes
*rightfully the property of the public*. Yet in all civilized countries,
it has