The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1860-07-26
(CoNTINUED.)

. (CoNTINUED.
The Government, by its existing land
licy, has thus caused to be distracted
bm the earnings of its hardy pioneers al
Dst seventeen hundred million dollars for
u mere privilege of enjoying one of Gods
bunties to man. This large amount has
len distracted from the sons of toll with
at rendering any equivalent, save a per-
lit from the State to occupy wilderness,
which not a day or hour of mans labor
lad been applied to change it from the con-
lition in which the God of nature made it.
Why should Governments seize upon any
of the bounties of God to man, and make
them source of revenue? While the earth
was created for the whole human family,
and made its abiding place through the
pilgrimage of this life, and since the hour
of the primal curse, " In the sweat of thy
face shalt thou eat bread, man has been
forced to the cultivation of the soil to OBJ
tain subsistence for himself and the means
of promoting the welfare of the race, why
should Governments wrestfrom him the right
to apply his labor to such unoccupied portion
of the earth's surface as may be necessary
for his support until he has contributed 10
the revenues of the State, any more than to
permit him to breathe the air, enjoy the sun
light, or quaf from the rill3 and rivers OF
the earth? 1t would be just AS rigitful
were it possible to be done, to survey the
atmosphere off into quarter sections and
transfer it hy parchment titles divide the
sun into quantum OF rays, and dole it out
to CROPPING mortals at price or arch over
the waters of the earth into vast reservoirs,
and sell it to dying men.
In the language of remarks heretofore
made on this subject, why has this claim of
man to monopoiize any of the gifts of God
to man been confined, by legal codes, to the
soil alone Is there any other reason than
that it is a right which having its origin 10
feudal times-under a system that regarded
man but as an appendage of the soil that
he titled, and whose life, liberty and happi-
ness, were but the means of increasing the
pleasures, pampering the passions and appe-
titles of his liege lord--and, having once
found place in the books, it has been re-
tanned by the reverence which man is wont
TO pay to the past, and to time honored
precedents The human mind is so consti-
tuted that it is prone TO regard as right
what has come down to US approved by
long usage, and hallowed by gray age It
is claim that had its origin with the kim
dred idea that royal blood flows only in the
veins of an exclusive few, whose souls are
more ethereal because born amid the gilt
ter of courts, and Graded amid the pomp of
lords and courtiers, and, therefore, they are
to be installed rs rulers and lawgivers of
the race. Most of the evils that affiict So
ciety have had their origin in violence and
wrong enacted into law by the experience
of the past, and retained by the prejudices
of the present.
Is it not time you swept from your statute
book its still lingering relics of feudalsm
blotted out the principles engrafted upon it
by the narrow-minded policy of other times
adj ia of ha FRY
to the spirit of the age, and to the true ideas
of mans rights and relations to his Govern
ment?
For if man has a right on earth, he has
right to land enough to rear habitation
on. If he has a right to live he has a
right to the free use of whatever nature has
provided for his sustenance-air to breathe,
water to drink. aud land enough to cult.
Vate tor his subsistence for these are the
necessary and indispensable means for the
ENJOY ment OF his inalienable rights of L" life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" And
= is it for Government that claims to dis
pense equal and exact justice to all classes
of men, and that has laid down correct
principles in its great chart of human rights
TO violate those principles and its solemn
declarations in its legislative enactments
The struggle between capital and labor is
an unequal one at best. 1t is a struggle be-
tween the bones and sinews of men and dol
lars and cents. And in that struggle, is il
for the Government to stretch forth its arm
to aid the strong against the weak? Shall
1t continue, by its legislation, to elevate and
enrich ldleness on the wall and woe of in
dustry
For if the IuIe be correct as applied to
Governments as we'll as individuals, that
whatever person permits another to do,
having the right and means TO prevent it,
De does himself then indeed Is the Govern