or legislative improvement which promises to lighten their burden. I am far from intending to say that nothing can be done in this direction by wise and judicious legislation. Much, indeed, has already been done, and it is but fair to hope that more will yet be effected.

Upon this point I especially desire not to be misunderstood. I am dealing with the right of property; I am not justifying its abuse. The fundamental law that secures its title does not place the owner of it beyond the power of legislation, in many particulars connected with its use and its disposition, in respect to which society has its just claims. The law of the land does not contemplate its subject as an isolated individual, having personal rights that carry no corresponding obligations. He is but one member of the great commonwealth in which all its people are entitled to equal consideration with himself. Up to a certain point restrictions and limitations touching the right of property are not only allowable, but necessary. It may undoubtedly be dealt with, in respect to the form it assumes, as well as the manner in which it is enjoyed, when such regulation is necessary to the common interest. That individual or corporate property may be taken by government, when the public necessity requires it, if just compensation is made for it, is one of the conditions upon which it is held and protected. In the United States Constitution this condition is expressly declared. Such a proceeding is not a deprivation of property, but is only turning it into money. What constitutes public necessity is a question of grave importance, the decision of which may vary widely in different countries, and under

different circumstances. I do not undertake to discuss it, far less to anticipate what discussion it may require hereafter.

But to regulate property for the general good is one thing, to take it away is quite another. The fatal objection to the schemes I have referred to is that they strike at its title, not at its form or its use. Under color, and doubtless sometimes with the real hope of bringing about an apparent justice-attractive in theory, impossible in fact-they all attempt, under whatever disguise, what in plain English amounts to this, to benefit one part of the community by the robbery of another.

Such theories transgress the scope and province of law. There is a limit to the field of civil authority within which it is indispensable, outside of which it is intolerable. In its province it is supreme; beyond that, all attempts to force it must inevitably fail.

The idea is too common that in legislation is to be found the panacea for all sorrow, and the relief for all misfortune. Even under free government the world may be governed too much. Liberty, to be worthy of the name, should be restrained no further than is necessary for its preservation. When the efficacy of law is exhausted a large field of human conduct still remains over which sound policy, enlightened morality, and the precepts of Christianity exercise the only control that is possible.

Invasion of the right of property defeats also the equality of the law. Equality of rights is ordained of God. Inequality of condition is equally ordained. The one may be temporarily broken down; the other can never be overcome. It has pleased Providence

to accord to but few the capacity to accumulate or to preserve property to any great extent. It is a beneficent provision that the mass of mankind must live by their industry. It is a blessing, not a curse, that by the sweat of the brow we shall eat bread. It would be an unhappy world if amusement were the sole employment of its inhabitants. Inequality of acquisition always has been and always must be great, under whatever conditions of government. The principle of law, therefore, which secures to every man his own, while it maintains equal rights, cannot prevent most unequal results. There is always to be seen, on the one hand, distress we should gladly alleviate; on the other, examples of excessive accumulation, of legal rights pushed to a hard extremity, of wealth uncharitably and unwisely applied, which in the individual cases we could wish were made impossible.

The same result attends the observance of the other principal rights secured by the law of the land. There are those in every community whose death or whose perpetual imprisonment would be a gain to society. But the equal protection must, nevertheless, be afforded to their lives and liberty that is accorded to the benefactor of his race. When the barrier of perfect security to the natural rights, to all men alike, is once removed, when these rights, or either of them, come to be held, not as absolute, but as subject in any degree whatever to the discretion of governmental power, there is no limit and no criterion that can be prescribed to that discretion. The first innovation is regarded as establishing its own propriety; that it has failed to answer its purpose, as it necessarily must fail, is taken to show that further experiments in the same direction

must be attempted. Oppression of the poor for the benefit of the rich is a form of tyranny that is promptly recognized and condemned. But it is not so easy for some to perceive that the oppression of the rich for the supposed benefit of the poor is equally in derogation of the principles of free government, and equally destructive in the end. All such experiments result in a warfare of classes. And in such a conflict, if carried out, whichever party prevails, free government is lost.

It is a grave error, therefore, to believe that invasion of the right of property is for the benefit of the poor. The result is precisely the reverse. Free government, while unquestionably the highest and best civil and social condition for all who live under it, is especially and above all to the advantage of the general mass of men. It is in itself the elevation of the common people and their emancipation from the tyranny of an oligarchy. Since the principles of civil and religious liberty were established in England the advance of civilization and prosperity has been greater than in all the history that had gone before. The improvement in the condition of the body of the people, in all respects, has been steady and rapid.

When free government is lost by being allowed to degenerate into class government, the strong are likely to take care of themselves. It is the weak who suffer. The wealthy may be made the first and most conspicuous sufferers. But they will be by no means the principal victims in the general catastrophe. Liberty is not the privilege of the strong; it is the protection of the weak.

Nor is it the rich who are chiefly interested in the

maintenance of the right of property. The less a man has, if he has anything, the more important it is to him that it should be safe. No property can be safe when once the general security that protects all alike is lost. It is a delusion to imagine that it can be impaired to a certain extent, and maintained for the residue; that it may be made the subject of a fluctuating protection on the lines of moral justice, at the will of the governing power. There can be no middle ground. Either the title to lawful property must be universally protected or it ceases to be protected at all.

That it is not the few but the many who are most largely benefited by the protection of the right of property has been strikingly demonstrated in the history of the United States. Under the American Constitution, as I shall point out hereafter, extraordinary safeguards have been devised which have thus far rendered that protection absolute and certain.

The result has been the most general distribution of property and the largest individual prosperity that have ever been known in civilized life. The glory of America has been well said to be in the homes of its people. Millions of those homes, the property of their occupants, held in a security of tenure hitherto unquestionable, stretch across the continent from sea to sea. It is true that, under the same equal protection, the millionaire enjoys and increases his accumulations, sometimes ill-gotten, sometimes ill-spent. But to assail him by impairing the general security to property that the Constitution affords would be like trying to stay the rain from heaven because it falls upon the unjust as well as upon the just. Or like impugning the beneficence of the Almighty because under its