Two excerpts from Stephen E. Ambrose's
Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West:
Before the revolution, George Washington owned tens of thousands of acres in the Tidewater and Piedmont and over sixty~three thousand acres of trans-Appalachia. He wanted more.
Jefferson inherited more than five thousand acres in the Piedmont from his father. He wanted more. From his wife he got another eleven thousand acres. And though he was a substantial land-owner, he was not a great one by Virginia standards...
Jefferson’s interest in exploring the country between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean ran back a full half-century. His father had been a member of the Loyal Land Company, which had been awarded by the crown some eight hundred thousand acres west of the Appalachian Mountains. (p. 68)
This brings to mind some comments by Thomas Paine in
Agrarian Justice:
Land, as before
said, is the free gift of the Creator in common to the human race. Personal
property is the effect of society; and it is as impossible for
an individual to acquire personal property without the aid of society, as
it is for him to make land originally.
Separate an individual from society, and give him an island or a continent
to possess, and he cannot acquire personal property. He cannot be rich.
So inseparably are the means connected with the end, in all cases, that
where the former do not exist the latter cannot be obtained. All accumulation,
therefore, of personal property, beyond what a man's own hands produce,
is derived to him by living in society; and he owes on every principle of
justice, of gratitude, and of civilization, a part of that accumulation
back again to society from whence the whole came.
That's a brilliant find. Paine's words stand in stark contrast to the Objectivist and Libertarian fantasies that every man is an island.
ReplyDelete"A common defense of the State holds that man is a "social animal," that he must live in society, and that individualists and libertarians believe in the existence of "atomistic individuals" uninfluenced by and unrelated to their fellow men. But no libertarians have ever held individuals to be isolated atoms; on the contrary, all libertarians have recognized the necessity and the enormous advantages of living in society, and of participating in the social division of labor. The great non sequitur committed by defenders of the State, including classical Aristotelian and Thomist philosophers, is to leap from the necessity of society to the necessity of the State."
Delete- Murray Rothbard
Let us avoid straw-manning each other, please.
Notwithstanding the fact, of course, that the land was already owned by someone, and the white colonists just decided that those pesky 'Indians' didn't really count and took the land for themselves. Manifest destiny, indeed!
ReplyDeleteAnd don't haul out the "they signed treaties! They knew what they were doing" argument. A treaty signed with a gun to the head of your entire civilization is only valid in the eyes of the gun-holder. If your only choices are to either sign the treaty or be slowly engulfed by someone with advanced weaponry and exterminated one by one, that's not really much of a choice is it?
Anonymous -- "We saw the land lying idle; we took it. This to other nations is all that we can say. Which one of them can cast the first stone?" Frederick Law Olmsted
ReplyDeleteNicholls -- it is a brilliant find. As a corollary to Paine's words, as early as 1797 Bishop Francis Ashbury worried: " I am of the opinion it is hard, or harder, for the people of the west to gain religion as any other . . . when I reflect that not one in a hundred came here to get religion, but rather to get plenty of good land, I think it will be well if some or many do not eventually lose their souls."
Pretty words to hide black deeds. The land was not idle according to the people from whom it was taken. They were actively using it, just not in the same way the white settlers wanted to use it. It's all about how you define "idle". isn't it? And guess whose definition counts? Maybe the one with the guns?
DeleteWere the carefully-tended fruit trees that the government chopped down or the crops that soldiers burned in the fields in order to drive the tribes from their lands idle? You ought to read some real history - not what you were spoon-fed in school - before you start cherry-picking soothing quotes designed to make people feel better.
DeleteVery interesting quote. I read it a few times in order to fully understand and appreciate it.
ReplyDeletePaine's quote is well said and true. Great stuff.
ReplyDelete