New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1855-10-16
declaring that there is no such thing as property

at all.
Such is Judge Knne's argument, and let us take
this opportunity to warn the holders OF property
and all those DESTROYS Of STRENGTHENING in the pub
Lie mind respect for the rights Of prOperty-hold-
ers, to be cautious how they listen for moment
TO any such dangerous nonsense. tits from treacb-
erous and undermining attacks Of this sort made
under the pretense of friendship, that property has
infinitely more to dread than from the fercest as
saults Of socialists and agrarans. The idea of prop
erty rests for its fundamental basis upon the senti
ment of justice Justice dictates that the discov
erer is entitled to the enjoyment of his discovery
that the laborer ought to enjoy the products Of
his labor; that be who contributes capital and In
telligence, organization, oversight and perseve
erance to any system of production, without which
it could not go, on is entitled to the larger
share of the proceeds; that the preserya
ton and improvement and fullest use OF
property demand that it should have
particular owner and that it is better for the
public thata mans property at his death should go
to bis relations in certain order, or failing these
TO the State, than that it should be left to be
scrambled for and perhaps ruined in the struggle
TO possess it. Such are the ideas of justice on
which the legal institution Of property rests, and
he who goes about to put the idea Of property in
opposition to the moral sentiment of the commu-
pity aims at il blow Of the deadiiest sort. What
but this opposition between actual possession aud
prevailing ideas of justice has produced the great
est confiscatOns and revolutions of property which
the world has ever seen : What is 1t but this
which has caused and is still causing the Cath
ole church to be stripped of that vast accumula-
ton Of property which by various arts, good and
bad. she had c0ntrived T. concentrate in her hands
And is property any the less secure in England
since the coniscaton of the abbey lands, or the
recent curtailment of tythes by their conversion
into permsnent and unaterable rent-charge
What else was it but the opposition between the
improved and enlightened moral sentiment of the
times and the antiquated pretensions and legal
rights of property holders which led to that
sweeping abolition of feudal claims by which the
early days of the French revolution were dis
tippuished Z There existed in France in
those times some feudal pretensions which
made some faint approach even to those OF our
American shareholders. 1t was said that there
were some 1cuuhl lOrus VIM Hau INC iiSus 'ncih-
selves, personally, to consummate every marriage
among their tenants and to enjoy for that purpose
possession of the first night or first week OF the
bridal bed Doubtless, in those times, some French
Kane might have been found to argue that to
aboli,h or discouDtenance this odiOus privilege was
to strike deadly blow at the rights OF property.
Yet when this and other similar statements were
made in the French national assembly, they led to
an instant and unanimous abolition of these infam-
GUS and nsolent property rights, in which the feu-
DIAL proprietors themselves took the lead. And will
even Judge Kane-habitual falsifer as he is-pub-
ic acted reiterated and perpetuated lie, as his i'm
prisonment Of Passmore Williamson is will even
Judge Kane pretend to say that the tenure OF
landed property is less secure, or respect for the
rights of those who hold it less general and less
predominant in France to-day, than it was be-
fore the abolition of these odiOus incidents of it
Respect for property, Judge Kane to the con-
trary notwithstanding is not in these times likely to
be increased by any association of the idea of it
with the business whether of grog selling or slave
trading. Property holders ought indeed to DO the
first to get rid of any such association and we ex-
pect to have the assistance of the wise ones among
them in saving their goods and ours and the ship
of State in which we all sail together, by throwing
overheard the twin JOnahs whose cursed and for
hidden presence on board threatens TO involve US
all in one common ruin.