Posse

“ It is not easy to discover how it concerns him that gathers the produce, or receives the rent of an estate, to know through what families the land has passed, who is registered in the Conqueror's survey as its possessor, how often it has been forfeited by treason, or how often sold by prodigality. ”

“ Society goes on; hamlets are built; property is established. He who has more than another has more power than another. Power is honored. Alan covets the honor attached to the power which is attached to possession. ”

“ For wealth must be produced: the whole of that community must live: and the possessors can make such terms with the non-possessors as shall make it certain that a portion of what the non-possessors have produced shall go to the possessors. ”

“ Only up to a certain point does possession make men feel freer and more independent; one step farther, and possession becomes lord, the possessor a slave. 2, 149
The governments of the great States have two instruments for keeping the people independent, in fear and obedience: a coarser, the army, and a more refined, the school. ”

“ To say that the possession of power, wealth, or influence was frequently abused to the overawing and coercing of those assemblies, is simply to state that they were composed of human beings possessed of fallen natures. ”

“ I would, however, have you recollect that we are the servants of the people, who are our patrons, to the extent that we must treat their property, while in our possession, with all the care we would our own. ”

“ Holding possession of the land, he then proclaimed that all the men who lived upon it were his slaves. And from the old feudal system we derive this ancient, this fallacious idea, that the possession of land by this Government gives it the power to govern anybody who shall buy the land. ”

“ The tenant-right of a cabbage-garden, a year's interest in a hovel, the good-will of an ale-house or a baker's shop, the very shadow of a constructive property, are more ceremoniously treated in our Parliament than with you the oldest and most valuable landed possessions, in the hands of the most respectable personages, or than the whole body of the moneyed and commercial interest of your country. ”

“ Almost all the real property of this kingdom is by the policy of our laws supposed to be granted by, dependent upon, and holden of some superior lord, by and in consideration of certain services to be rendered to the lord by the tenant or possessor of this property. ”

“ And so, in the arrangement of the family, a slave is a living possession, and property a number of such instruments; and the servant is himself an instrument which takes precedence of all other instruments. ”

“ for it is with literature as with law or empire-an established name is an estate in tenure, or a throne in possession. ”

“ There ought to be no laws to guarantee property against the folly of its possessors. ”

“ But I believe that no democratic organisation, however extended among the masses, will overthrow the established order of things, so long as the possessors of property, the upper classes, are true to the objects for which property was instituted. ”

“ If your claim is successful, you are tenant of the heir. The lawyers say that public property cannot be acquired privately by possession; [11] what you hold and call your own is public property – indeed, it belongs to mankind at large. ”

“ He has commanded us not to steal, and he has commanded us not to covet our neighbor's goods; proof sufficient that the possession of property is sanctioned by divine authority, and that it is endowed with a certain sanctity of privilege. ”

“ The landed Gentry, the Country Clergy, the more considerable Merchants and Men in Trade, the substantial and industrious Freeholders and Yeomen," possess a middle State of Life, which guards them from many of those Temptations that surround the higher and the lower Ranks. ”

“ In their civil assemblies; and this is grounded upon the principles of nature and common reason, which in all difficulties or dangers, where prudence or courage is required, rather incite us to fly for counsel or assistance to a single person, than a multitude. The second natural division of power is, of such men, who have acquired large possessions, and consequently dependencies, or descend from ancestors who have left them great inheritances, together with an hereditary authority. ”

“ Slaves shall be deemed, held, taken, reputed, and adjudged in law, to be chattels personal in the hands of their owners and possessors and their executors, administrators, and assigns, to all intents, constructions, and purposes whatsoever. ”

“ What then must be the sufferings of those persons, who are to be the objects of this division and strife? See the heirs of a departed slaveholder, disputing as to the rightful possession of human beings, many of them their old nurses, and their playmates in their younger days! The scene which took place at the division of my master’s human property, baffles all description. ”

“ And, on the other hand, men will contentedly submit to be governed by those who have large possessions, and from whom they receive protection and support, whilst they will yet always emulate their equals. ”

“ It should be remembered that the foundation of the social compact is property; and its first condition, that every one should be maintained in the peaceful possession of what belongs to him. ”

“ One must begin far back. In early [Pg 76] feudal times the cultivator of another's land was either a serf or a person of no importance, holding at his lord's will. The tenant's position improved with the times, leases were granted, and if their conditions were broken, a Writ of Covenant, as the form of action was called, secured him in possession, and gave him damages for his wrongs. ”

“ So that God, by commanding to subdue, gave authority so far to appropriate: and the condition of human life, which requires labour and materials to work on, necessarily introduces private possessions. ”

“ I will now give a summary view of the general characteristics of this state of things, and endeavour to estimate their influence on the progress of general civilization, and more particularly of political institutions.
I. There was a great diversity in the conditions of property. In our days, the condition of property is uniform and everywhere the same; whoever the proprietor may be, he possesses his property, whatever may be its character, on the same tenure of right, and subject to the same laws as any other. ”

“ Almost all the powerful and accredited families belong to it whatever may be their origin and their date.1323 Through their habitual or frequent residence near the court, through their alliances or mutual visits, through their habits and their luxuries, through the influence which they exercise and the enmities which they provoke, they form a group apart, and are those who possess the most extensive estates, the leading suzerainties, and the most complete and comprehensive jurisdictions. ”

“ The preservation of power under such circumstances of course depended chiefly upon the possession of superior wealth and the other appliances of wealth which were its concomitants. Thus it came to be regarded as essentially characteristic of an oligarchy, that the main distinction between the dominant faction and the subject portion of the community was the possession of greater wealth on the part of the former. ”

“ All which circumstances, if they do not amount to proofs, are strong indications that the power of the chiefs, where property is concerned, is not arbitrary, but at least so far circumscribed and ascertained, as to make it worth the while for the inferior orders to cultivate the soil, and to occupy their possessions distinct from each other. ”

“ But the nobility comprised all those men and all those families which were trained to occupy high administrative place. The secretaries of state, the judges of the higher courts, the officers in the army, were noblemen. The order also included a large proportion of the educated men and the possessors of a considerable part of the wealth of the country. ”

“ Not only are nobles and the bourgeoisie exempt from conscription, but again the employees of the administration, of the fermes and of public works, "all gamekeepers and forest-rangers, the hired domestics and valets of ecclesiastics, of communities, of religious establishments, of the gentry and of nobles,"5405 and even of the bourgeoisie living in grand style, and still better, the sons of cultivators in easy circumstances, and, in general, all possessing influence or any species of protector. ”

“ "The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government, and to Collect the duties and imposts." ”

“ Neither can men, by the same principles, be considered as lands, goods, or houses, among possessions. It is necessary that all property should be inferiour to its possessor. But how does the slave differ from his master, but by chance? ”

“ But common people, whether lords or shopkeepers, are slow to understand that possession, whether in the shape of birth, or lands, or money, or intellect, is a small affair in the difference between men. ”

“ Prosperity, both for individuals and for states, means possessions; and possessions mean burdens and harness and slavery; and slavery for the mind, too, because it is not only the rich man's time that is pre-empted, but his affections, his judgement, and the range of his thoughts. ”

“ I said, I regretted I was not the head of a clan; however, though not possessed of such an hereditary advantage, I would always endeavour to make my tenants follow me. ”

“ The eyes have a property in things and territories not named in any title deeds, and are the owners of our choicest possessions. ”

“ Property, possessions, and riches also had finally captured him; ”

“ Suddenly, as if blown out of the waving grain, or an incarnation of the vivid morning, the bright and striking figure of a youthful horseman flashed before the grille. It was Clarence Brant! Mary Rogers had always seen him, in the loyalty of friendship, with Susy's prepossessed eyes, yet she fancied that morning that he had never looked so handsome before. Even the foppish fripperies of his riding-dress and silver trappings seemed as much the natural expression of conquering youth as the invincible morning sunshine. ”

“ So that if you give your estate by will unequally among your children, as they may have behaved more or less dutiful to you, that which has the least may take the other's part from him; or another relation may possibly hire such another mob, to take away the whole from them. We shall not at such times see property determined by judge and jury, but by force of arms; and the richest and most powerful man will be able to swallow up all the estates of his lesser neighbours. ”

“ So that property ought not to be accounted a gift of God in the common sense of the word, but rather a species of office, with which some of His servants are put in charge, as others are entrusted with the ministry of the word, and others with political or sovereign power. ”

“ High hills, verdureless and enfiladed with dark canadas, cast their gaunt shadows on the tide. During a greater portion of the day the wind, which blew furiously and incessantly, seemed possessed with a spirit of fierce disquiet and unrest. Toward nightfall the sea-fog crept with soft step through the portals of the Golden Gate, or stole in noiseless marches down the hillside, tenderly soothing the wind-buffeted face of the cliff, until sea and sky were hid together. At such times the populous city beyond and the nearer settlement seemed removed to an infinite distance. ”

“ If they had not the firm conviction that the title of king, statesman, governor, judge, landowner, marshal of nobility, officer, or soldier is of serious import and necessity, not one of them could contemplate without horror and disgust his own share in the deeds done in these latter days. ”

“ A schedule of five columns, such we are familiar with, would set forth ‘Owner’s Name,’ ‘Place of Residence,’ ‘Description of Geldable Property,’ ‘Hidage,’ ‘Amount due.’ But the occupier is not always the owner; what is more, there is no absolute ownership. Two, three, four persons will be interested in the land; the occupier will have a lord and that lord a lord; the occupier may be a serf, a villein, a sokeman; there is commendation to be considered and soke and all the infinite varieties of the power to ‘withdraw’ the land from the lord. ”

“ Would the nobles of a royal court thus deem themselves honoured, if the country people were daily to sit at the king’s table, and themselves to be busied with farming and cattle, and other meaner occupations?
Will not more be required of those to whom more is given? ”

“ The property of the whole kingdom shall be great, or little, or none, just at the mercy of a secretary's pen, guided by a child, or a dotard, or a foolish woman, or a favourite buffoon, or a gamester, or whoever is uppermost for the day ”

“ Wretched is he who can take pleasure in the size of the audit book of his estate, in great tracts of land cultivated by slaves in chains, in huge flocks and herds which require provinces and kingdoms for their pasture ground, in a household of servants, more in number than some of the most warlike nations, or in a private house whose extent surpasses that of a large city! ”

“ Sir, in the name of the institution of property, of that great institution, for the sake of which, chiefly, all other institutions exist, of that great institution to which we owe all knowledge, all commerce, all industry, all civilisation, all that makes us to differ from the tattooed savages of the Pacific Ocean, I protest against the pernicious practice of ascribing to that which is not property the sanctity which belongs to property alone. ”

“ Can any one say, the king, or conqueror, after his grant, may by his power of conqueror take away all, or part of the land from the heirs of one, or from the other during his life, he paying the rent? ”