Opinion ID: 2333047
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Property and Liberty

Text: The most definitive and authoritative book on property rights and liberty in America was written by Professor James W. Ely, Jr. [14] The title for Professor Ely's work was inspired by Virginian Arthur Lee's declaration that [t]he right of property is the guardian of every other right, and to deprive a people of this, is in fact to deprive them of their liberty. [15] A brief historical review is helpful to understand why DelDOT had no authority to condemn the Cannons' private property. The origin of property rights in America can be traced to the Magna Charta in 1215, which protected the rights of property owners against arbitrary action by the sovereign. It provided in chapter 39 that [n]o freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or disseised ... unless by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. With this language, the Magna Charta secured the rights of private property owners against deprivations by the sovereign without due process of law. [16] That guarantee remains one of the most fundamental tenets of our American constitutional democracy. In 1687, when the State of Delaware constituted the three lower counties of Pennsylvania, William Penn (Penn) arranged for the publication of a commentary on the Magna Charta. [17] Penn implored American colonists not to give away any thing of Liberty and Property that at present they do ... enjoy. [18] In 1689, John Locke (Locke) wrote his famous Second Treatise on Government, which asserted that legitimate government was based on a compact between the people and their rulers. [19] According to Locke, private property existed under natural law before the creation of political authority. Indeed, the principal purpose of government was to protect these natural property rights, which Locke fused with liberty. [20] Undoubtedly influenced by Locke, the rights of property owners were characterized by the most prominent political theorists in the eighteenth century as the bulwark of freedom from arbitrary government. [21] In 1721, John Trenchard stated, All Men are animated by the Passion of acquiring and defending Property, because Property is the best Support of that Independency, so passionately desired by all Men. [22] The Lockean theory of property rights was reflected in the English common law. In his Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-1769), William Blackstone acknowledged the influence of Locke's formulation on the law's evolution. Blackstone summarized the English common law on property rights in broad terms: So great moreover is the regard of the law for private property, that it will not authorize the least violation of it. [23] Prior to the American Revolution, property ownership became identified with the preservation of political liberty. Blackstone's Commentaries were studied as a definitive summary of English common law. [24] The Declaration of Independence reflected the inseparability of political liberty and private property described in the compact theory of Locke. [25]