Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1779

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No date

 

 

 

 

 

So far as the instincts or circumstances of men prompt them to hold inviolate one another’s persons, and to hold likewise inviolate the authority of particular persons over portions of land or of wealth, then such persons so far have ownership and title to their respective persons and properties ….. towns.

 

 

The successors of these lesser lords, when all their power to tax or seize was lost, became at last the modern non-coercive institution of private property in land, while by might of sword the most powerful barons, counts and dukes attained the sovereign power of king. These laid their former fellows under tribute, such as was resisted at Runnymede and from towns and cities appeased by “gifts” that became extortions and the parent ground of modern taxation after the manner of ancient and self-destroying Rome.

 

     But its jurisdiction did not extend to the properties and services of common use and __________. These properties continued as of old under dominance of political persons who, being not proprietors but ex-proprietors, could not make them the subject matter of contract but only of arbitrary or coercive administration.