The galleys that carried Caesar to Britain, the accoutrements of
his legionaries, the baggage that they carried, the arms that they
bore, the buildings that they erected; the scythed chariots of the
ancient Britons, the horses that drew them, their wicker boats and
wattled houses–where are they now? But the land for which Roman
and Briton fought, there it is still. That British soil is yet as
fresh and as new as it was in the days of the Romans. Generation
after generation has lived on it since, and generation after
generation will live on it yet. Now, here is a very great difference.
The right to possess and to pass on the ownership of things that in
their nature decay and soon cease to be is a very different thing
from the right to possess and to pass on the ownership of that which
does not decay, but from which each successive generation must
live.
To show how this difference between land and such other species of
property as are properly styled wealth bears upon the argument for
the vested rights of landholders, let me illustrate again.
Captain Kidd was a pirate. He made a
business of sailing the seas, capturing merchantmen, making their
crews walk the plank, and appropriating their cargoes. In this way he
accumulated much wealth, which he is thought to have buried. But let
us suppose, for the sake of the illustration, that he did not bury
his wealth, but left it to his legal heirs, and they to their heirs
and so on, until at the present day this wealth or a part of it has
come to a great-great-grandson of Captain Kidd. Now, let us suppose
that some one – say a great-great-grandson of one of the
shipmasters whom Captain Kidd plundered, makes complaint, and says:
"This man's great-great-grandfather plundered my
great-great-grandfather of certain things or certain sums, which have
been transmitted to him, whereas but for this wrongful act they would
have been transmitted to me; therefore, I demand that he be made to
restore them." What would society answer?
Society, speaking by its proper tribunals, and in accordance with
principles recognized among all civilized nations, would say: "We
cannot entertain such a demand. It may be true that Mr. Kidd's
great-great-grandfather robbed your great-great-grandfather, and that
as the result of this wrong he has got things that otherwise might
have come to you. But we cannot inquire into occurrences that
happened so long ago. Each generation has enough to do to attend to
its own affairs. If we go to righting the wrongs and reopening the
controversies of our great-great-grandfathers, there will be endless
disputes and pretexts for dispute. What you say may be true, but
somewhere we must draw the line, and have an end to strife. Though
this man's great-great-grandfather may have robbed your
great-great-grandfather, he has not robbed you. He came into
possession of these things peacefully, and has held them peacefully,
and we must take this peaceful possession, when it has been continued
for a certain time, as absolute evidence of just title; for, were we
not to do that, there would be no end to dispute and no secure
possession of anything."
Now, it is this common-sense principle that is expressed in the
statute of limitations – in the doctrine of vested rights. This is
the reason why it is held – and as to most things held
justly – that peaceable possession for a certain time cures
all
defects of title.
But let us pursue the illustration a little further:
Let us suppose that Captain Kidd, having established a large and
profitable piratical business, left it to his son, and he to his son,
and so on, until the great-great-grandson, who now pursues it, has
come to consider it the most natural thing in the world that his
ships should roam the sea, capturing peaceful merchantmen, making
their crews walk the plank, and bringing home to him much plunder,
whereby he is enabled, though he does no work at all, to live in very
great luxury, and look down with contempt upon people who have to
work. But at last, let us suppose, the merchants get tired of having
their ships sunk and their goods taken, and sailors get tired of
trembling for their lives every time a sail lifts above the horizon,
and they demand of society that piracy be stopped.
Now, what should society say if Mr. Kidd got indignant, appealed
to the doctrine of vested rights, and asserted that society was bound
to prevent any interference with the business that he had inherited,
and that, if it wanted him to stop, it must buy him out, paying him
all that his business was worth–that is to say, at least as much
as he could make in twenty years' successful pirating, so that if he
stopped pirating he could still continue to live in luxury off of the
profits of the merchants and the earnings of the sailors?
What ought society to say to such a claim as this? There will be
but one answer. We will all say that society should tell Mr. Kidd
that his was a business to which the statute of limitations and the
doctrine of vested rights did not apply; that because his father, and
his grandfather, and his great- and great-great-grandfather pursued
the business of capturing ships and making their crews walk the
plank, was no reason why lie should be permitted to pursue it.
Society, we will all agree, ought to say he would have to stop piracy
and stop it at once, and that without getting a cent for
stopping.
Or supposing it had happened that Mr. Kidd had sold out his
piratical business to Smith, Jones, or Robinson, we will all agree
that society ought to say that their purchase of the business gave
them no greater right than Mr. Kidd had.
We will all agree that that is what society ought to say. Observe,
I do not ask what society would say.
For, ridiculous and preposterous as it may appear, I am satisfied
that, under the circumstances I have supposed, society would not for
a long time say what we have agreed it ought to say. Not only would
all the Kidds loudly claim that to make them give up their business
without full recompense would be a wicked interference with vested
rights, but the justice of this claim would at first be assumed as a
matter of course by all or nearly all the influential
classes–the great lawyers, the able journalists, the writers for
the magazines, the eloquent clergymen, and the principal professors
in the principal universities. Nay, even the merchants and sailors,
when they first began to complain, would be so tyrannized and
browbeaten by this public opinion that they would hardly think of
more than of buying out the Kidds, and, wherever here and there any
one dared to raise his voice in favor of stopping piracy at once and
without compensation, he would only do so under penalty of being
stigmatized as a reckless disturber and wicked foe of social
order.
If any one denies this, if any one says mankind are not such
fools, then I appeal to universal history to bear me witness. I
appeal to the facts of today.
Show me a wrong, no matter how monstrous, that ever yet, among any
people, became ingrafted in the social system, and I will prove to
you the truth of what I say. ...
What is the slave-trade but piracy of the worst kind? Yet it is
not long since the slave-trade was looked upon as a perfectly
respectable business, affording as legitimate an opening for the
investment of capital and the display of enterprise as any other. The
proposition to prohibit it was first looked upon as ridiculous, then
as fanatical, then as wicked. It was only slowly and by hard fighting
that the truth in regard to it gained ground. Does not our very
Constitution bear witness to what I say? Does not the fundamental law
of the nation, adopted twelve years after the enunciation of the
Declaration of Independence, declare that for twenty years the
slave-trade shall not be prohibited nor restricted? Such dominion had
the idea of vested interests over the minds of those who had already
proclaimed the inalienable right of man to life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness!
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