Yet mankind are divided into nations, and all civilized nations
are fixed to the soil. The territory is defined, and is the
domain of the state, from which all private proprietors hold
their title-deeds. Individual proprietors hold under the state,
and often hold more, than they occupy; but it retains in all
private estates the eminent domain, and prohibits the alienation
of land to one who is not a citizen. It defends its domain, its
public unoccupied lauds, and the lands owned by private
individuals, against all foreign powers. Now whence, if
government has only the rights ceded it by individuals, does it
get this domain, and hold the right to treat settlers on even
its unoccupied lands as trespassers? In the state of nature the
territorial rights of individuals, if any they have, are
restricted to the portion of land they occupy with their rude
culture, and with their flocks and herds, and in civilized
nations to what they hold from the state, and, therefore, the
right as held and defended by all nations, and without which the
nation has no status, no fixed dwelling, and is and can be no
state, could never have been derived from individuals. The
earliest notices of Rome show the city in possession of the
sacred territory, to which the state and all political power are
attached. Whence did Rome become a landholder, and the
governing people a territorial people? Whence does any nation
become a territorial nation and lord of the domain? Certainly
never by the cession of individuals, and hence no civilized
government ever did or could originate in the so-called social
compact.
Pages:
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86