The right to property is the most ancient of arguments beginning with the creation of mankind. I learned early in my youth, during my studies of Scriptures, that God gifted mankind with the earth to be stewards over it. While continuing my studies at Harvard and learning the details of the history of England and its Constitution, Property was a significant topic. I studied the great philosopher of the day John Locke. Locke well established that Property was extensible to not only land but to wages, effort, intellect or anything unique to an individuals person.
“Though the Earth, and all inferior Creatures be common to all Men, yet every Man has a Property in his own Person. This no Body had any Right to but himself. The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the State that Nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his Labour with, and joyned to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his Property. It being by him removed from the common state Nature placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other Men. For this Labour being the unquestionable Property of the Labourer, no Man but he can have a right to what that is once joyned to, at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for others.” Sec. 27. Of the Second Treatise of Government
You must remember that the King had broken our Charter for self-governance in Massachusetts and through Parliament, beginning after the French and Indian War in 1765, had instituted acts that affected our commerce, businesses, homes and liberty. These acts of tyranny culminated in the “Intolerable Acts” of 1774.
As you may know, I presented the “The Natural Rights of the Colonist as Men in November 1772. I clearly spoke to our natural rights and the right to defend these in the best manner possible. I argue the point that; “…The Legislative has no right to absolute, arbitrary power over the lives and fortunes of the people; nor can mortals assume a prerogative not only too high for men, but for angels, and therefore reserved for the exercise of the Deity alone.
“The Legislative cannot justly assume to itself a power to rule by extempore arbitrary decrees; but it is bound to see that justice is dispensed, and that the rights of the subjects be decided by promulgated, standing, and known laws, and authorized independent judges”; that is, independent, as far as possible, of Prince and people. “There should be one rule of justice for rich and poor, for the favorite at court, and the countryman at the plough.”
“…The supreme power cannot justly take from any man any part of his property, without his consent in person or by his representative.”
Now I look into your present time in history and see that your properties, all the definitions of it, are in jeopardy! The tyranny that I see is that Non Governmental Organization, Government Agencies, the Courts and foreign agencies/governments (The United Nations) are dictating how your Rights to your property are being diminished. We rose up, we rose against what the King and Parliament did to us. And yet, You, you sleep and tolerate the chains that will bind you.
I continued in the November 1772 writing with, “Now what liberty can there be where property is taken away without consent? Can it be said with any color of truth and justice, that this continent of three thousand miles in length, and of a breadth as yet unexplored, in which, however, it is supposed there are five millions of people, has the least voice, vote, or influence in the British Parliament? Have they all together any more weight or power to return a single member to that House of Commons who have not inadvertently, but deliberately, assumed a power to dispose of their lives, liberties, and properties, than to choose an Emperor of China? Had the Colonists a right to return members to the British Parliament, it would only be hurtful; as, from their local situation and circumstances, it is impossible they should ever be truly and properly represented there. The inhabitants of this country, in all probability, in a few years, will be more numerous than those of Great Britain and Ireland together; yet it is absurdly expected by the promoters of the present measures that these, with their posterity to all generations, should be easy, while their property shall be disposed of by a House of Commons at three thousand miles’ distance from them, and who cannot be supposed to have the least care or concern for their real interest; who have not only no natural care for their interest, but must be in effect bribed against it, as every burden they lay on the Colonists is so much saved or gained to themselves. Hitherto, many of the Colonists have been free from quit rents; but if the breath of a British House of Commons can originate an act for taking away all our money, our lands will go next, or be subject to rack rents from haughty and relentless landlords, who will ride at ease, while we are trodden in the dirt. The Colonists have been branded with the odious names of traitors and rebels only for complaining of their grievances. How long such treatment will or ought to be borne, is submitted.”
I implore you Citizens and Countrymen do not let Agenda 21, ICLEI, Sustainability fool you and steal away your Rights. You must fight these tyrannical policies and acts upon your person. Otherwise, I can only say now what I wrote in my day and am most noted for saying, “Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say ‘what should be the reward of such sacrifices?’ Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!”
“The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending against all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.”