Landed property

“ It will not be considered extravagant, when the claims of those who have got present possession of this landed property is taken into consideration—the claim that the land is theirs for the whole remainder of eternity, notwithstanding the truth shining by its own light, that landed property must be more limited in its nature than other proprietary rights, because no man made the land. ”

“ These are the reasons which form the justification in an economical point of view, of property in land. It is seen, that they are only valid, in so far as the proprietor of land is its improver. Whenever, in any country, the proprietor, generally speaking, ceases to be the improver, political economy has nothing to say in defence of landed property, as there established. In no sound theory of private property was it ever contemplated that the proprietor of land should be merely a sinecurist quartered on it. ”

“ Nowhere in the world is the position of the landed proprietor so high as in this country, and this in great part for the reason that nowhere else is the possession of landed property so closely associated with definite duty. ”

“ In the law of the Visigoths, we find men who own vineyards, fields, meadows, and even pasturage and forests. [82] Land is hereditary property; and there is an entire section upon the division of landed possessions [Pg 19] amongst co-heirs, as well as one on the boundaries of private estates. It is the same throughout the Lombard law; the right of ownership applies to everything, even to forests. ”

“ They may be created in a moment of political excitement, as by the Freehold Land Societies in England; they may be created through the feeling of alienation and want of confidence between landlord and tenant, as in Ireland; but, until our laws respecting the mortgaging, sale, and transmission of landed property, be framed with the object and purpose of allowing of the existence of peasant properties, their permanent existence is impossible. ”

“ But the proposition that the soil is property conveys a very imperfect idea of the numerous and variously limited rights comprised in landed estate; and it is sometimes necessary to remember that the name of property belongs to some of the essential proprietary rights vested in the person called the owner of the soil.... ”

“ To create a National Fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of Fifteen Pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property. ”

“ That act provides that an owner of a large estate may sell to his tenants the holdings they occupy, and his untenanted land to any one who desires to buy it, in such tracts and at such prices as may be agreed upon, corresponding to the income now derived from that particular property. No landlord can sell a few acres here and there of good land under this act, although, of course, he is at liberty to dispose of any part of his estate at any time at any price that he may consider proper. ”

“ A lease of land is the rightful possession and use without the ownership of it, while a servitude over land is the rightful use without either the ownership or the possession of it. There are two distinct methods in which I may acquire a road across another man’s property. ”

“ These considerations show that the 'owner,' spoken of in the third section of the Captured and Abandoned Property Act, 'having a right to the proceeds thereof,' is he who has the legal interest in those proceeds, and that a factor who made advances before the capture can, at most, recover only to the extent of his lien. ”

“ Again, the possessory right of a qualified locator after discovery of minerals is a property right in the full sense, unaffected by the fact that the paramount title to the land is in the United States, and such interest from early times has been held to be vendible, inheritable, and taxable. ”

“ It further provides: 'The term 'real property' as used in this compact includes lands, * * * and interests in land, * * * and any and all things and rights usually included within the said term, and includes not only fees simple and absolute, but also any and all lesser interests, such as easements, rights of way, uses, leases, licenses, and all other incorporeal hereditaments and every estate, interest or right, legal or equitable, including terms of years and liens thereon by way of judgments, mortgages, or otherwise, and also claims for damage to real estate.' N.J.S.A. 32:8-4. ”

“ Yet where is the citizen that does not gladly exchange all the steadfast earth-bound property he has, and invest it in this more beneficial and productive possession? Trover and trespass may be maintained for it, contracts may be made with regard to it, transfers may take place of it-in short, there is no criterion of property or ownership, that may not be applied to what is regarded as having no substantial existence. ”

“ The difficulty, indeed, of late years, has been not to find sellers but purchasers of the land, and it is not to be supposed that even if you were to take away every check, and make every landowner an absolute owner, he would at once rush into the market and sell his property. ”

“ It is to give the soil its value every year; it is, by annually renewed creation, to prevent the diminution or destruction of the value of a piece of land. Admitting, then, that property is rational and legitimate,—admitting that rent is equitable and just,—I say that he who cultivates acquires property by as good a title as he who clears, or he who improves; and that every time a tenant pays his rent, he obtains a fraction of property in the land entrusted to his care, the denominator of which is equal to the proportion of rent paid. ”

“ The court said in that case, 'by grants of land, we do not mean the mere grant itself, but the right, title, legal possession, and estate, property and ownership, legally resulting upon a grant of land to the owner.' But in the case before us, from the want of survey, or some point for the beginning of one, there can neither be a seisin in fact nor in law; for identity of premises is as essential for a seisin in law, as it is necessarily implied in a seisin in fact. ”

“ Those, therefore, who acquire personal property, acquire only what will last about a generation, longer or shorter. Such property is quickly converted into money—it perishes and is gone. But land is hedged round with numerous guards which protect it from hasty spoliation. ”

“ The good will of a lease which the landlord is in the habit of renewing is property, and rights growing out of it, whether by contract or otherwise, will be protected and enforced by a court of equity. ”

“ The right to dispose both of the possession and estate follows necessarily from the ownership of the property, and, this being so, no valid objection can be urged against incorporating the contract and power in the same instrument with the mortgage. ”

“ The second law related to land, enacting that no one should occupy more than five hundred jugera, or acres, and that if he had a surplus, he should be deprived of it, for the benefit of those who wished to settle their own liabilities with other people's property. ”

“ But if one tenant in common enters into actual and exclusive possession of the land, taking the rents and profits to his own use, and openly assert his own exclusive property in the lands, and deny the title of any other, it will be considered as an adverse possession by him, and those claiming under him, and an ouster of the other claimants. ”

“ For these reasons-that the heirs never had any other right or title to the lands, or to their possession, except under the lease, containint covenants to restore the property and possession to the lessor, or to his successor in title, on its termination-the plaintiff prays that they be adjudged to hold the lands as trustees for his use and benefit, and be decreed to couvey them to him, on his paying the money advanced in the purchase, and that he be allowed reasonable rent for the occupancy of the lands. ”

“ And what is true of lots in cities, the ownership of which is in dispute, is equally true of large tracts of land in the country. The property in this case, to quiet the title to which the present suit is brought, is described in the bill as unoccupied, wild, and uncultivated land. Few persons would be willing to take possession of such land, inclose cultivate, and improve it, in the face of a disputed claim to its ownership. ”

“ Prior to December 1, 1881, the limitation of actions for the recovery of real property, or the possession thereof, was 20 years; and this, by the territorial act of that date, was reduced to 10 years. ”

“ A far more serious impediment is the complicated state of the ownership of land, which renders it frequently impracticable to subdivide a property into such portions as would bring the land within the reach of small bidders. ”

“ Though this may be the consequence the rest of the will is not thereby impaired. The property given is either real or personal. Real property consists of land extending indefinitely upward and downward, every building thereon, every growing thing, likewise all minerals and in some cases even ice. ”

“ The interest accruing from the funded property or the rent of the lands at certain periods was to be employed to purchase other estates, other parks and manors in the neighbourhood or farther off, so that the prospect of the future demesne that was to devolve at some distant time to the unborn lord of acres, swelled and enlarged itself, like a sea, circle without circle, vista beyond vista, till the imagination was staggered, and the mind exhausted. ”

“ Thus, in Washburn on Real Property, it is said that 'a devise of the rents and profits of land, or the income of land, is equivalent to a devise of the land itself, and will be for life or in fee, according to the limitation expressed in the devise.' Volume 2, p. ”

“ But in those days, tenancies for years and other smaller interests in lands were not held as of much account, being of small value, and subject to being forfeited or declared void on various pretences; whence arises the apparent anomaly, that leasehold property is personal estate, whatever may be its value, and therefore distributable among all the children of an intestate, as will be explained more fully. A third class of property is ‘copyhold,’ which is real estate, but in respect of which the feudal services were of a different description. ”

“ And if, not the tenant, but the landlord himself, were deprived of his property? or, if anyone not in possession claimed a piece of land as his freehold? These forms of procedure were not available, since they were personal actions, and a claimant to the freehold must proceed by a real action. These last were in early times the most important of all. ”

“ And the first question that would seem to arise is, whether the term estate, as here used, will extend to the interest which the debtor has in lands held adversely. An estate in lands, tenements, and hereditaments, signifies such interest as a person has therein, and is the condition or circumstance in which the owner stands with regard to his property. Coke. sec. 345. a. 2 Black. Com. 103.
The language of the act is broad enough to include a right of entry; and there can be no reason to believe that such was not the intention of the legislature. ”

“ In the first place, if I have a right to a share of the advantages that accrue from the possession of superior land, then that share is mine; it is my property; it is like any other property of mine; no man, no body of men, is entitled to decide how this property shall be used; and any man or body of men attempting so to decide deprives me of my property just as truly as the owner of the superior land deprives me of it if allowed to retain the economic rent. ”

“ In order to satisfy the claims of these persons it was accordingly enacted that all who had obtained property from the grantees "for good and valuable consideration, and not consideration of blood, affinity or marriage," should, in lieu of the lands restorable to their former owners, receive "other lands, tenements, hereditaments of equal value, worth, or purchase." ”

“ ILLUSTRATION.—An illustration that gives us the idea of property will make our definition clear. A takes his shoes to a cobbler to be repaired. When he calls for them, he does not have the price for the work, and the cobbler refuses to give them up. Both A and the cobbler have a property right in the shoes. The right to absolute ownership is in A, that is his property right. The temporary possession, however, is in the cobbler, and he may hold the shoes under the lien for repairs indefinitely and until he receives his compensation. The lien is his property right. ”

“ It has control over property within its limits; and the condition of ownership of real estate therein, whether the owner be stranger or citizen, is subjection to its rules concerning the holding, the transfer, liability to obligations, private or public, and the modes of establishing titles thereto. ”

“ Lands, as we have endeavored to show, are not rendered inalienable by being given to charitable uses, but set apart as constituting a fund to be used in a provident and judicious manner, to promote the object for which they are given, and this provident and judicious manner as much requires a sale, when by chance of circumstances the property has become unproductive, but can be made productive by a sale, as under other circumstances it requires the property to be preserved and kept. ”

“ You now claim that the rights of property in land should be respected, while you have too frequently by your settlements and entails kept your lands out of the possibility of fulfilling any of the obligations of property, and you have robbed your tradespeople and creditors, because your land was protected by cunningly contrived statutes and parchments against all duty, while it enjoyed all privilege. ”