The forgotten fundamental right: Property

The American public can easily grasp the constitutional concepts of “free speech,” or “free exercise of religion,” or the “right to peaceably assemble.” By contrast, the phrase “property rights” doesn’t have the same cachet — it just lies there like some arcane principle that must be debated by lawyers before we know what it really means.

Yet cachet or not, there is no more important right than the right to be safe and secure within one’s own property — provided a person wants to live as a free man and not a slave. Unfortunately, Thomas Jefferson substituted the words “pursuit of happiness” for “property” when he wrote the Declaration of Independence.

In writing the Declaration, Jefferson echoed John Locke’s “Second Treatise on Civil Government,” which argued for “life, liberty and property.” The right to own property was inherent in the pursuit of happiness and Jefferson most likely was expanding upon that word to include other things as well.

Nevertheless, the subtle shift has led some Americans to believe that property rights are a bastard stepchild of other rights....

Discussion of interest:

Court case warns EPA could ‘own’ your land!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2681388/posts

—They are already at it. I “own” 14 acres which are designated wet lands, even though they are wet only during the spring runoff. I am legally restricted from doing anything to that piece of my property, yet I have to pay taxes on it.

==You likely “own” your land in fee simple. Most people confuse fee simple ownership, with the stronger (and far rarer) allodial title. Even allodial title isn’t true ownership - land tenure rights are actually quite limited.

—The vast majority of property is owned fee simple. The EPA ventured onto my property unbidden, roamed about and after which advised me that I could no longer modify the terrain, which, by the way represents 35% of my holdings. So far as I’m concerned, this is an adverse taking. Put another way, it is conversion.

==You might find this site interesting: http://www.libertyforlife.com/law/law-allodial_title.htm

Allodial - “Free; not holden of any lord or superior; owned without obligation of vassalage or fealty; the opposite of feudal.”

In the Treaty of Paris, which ended the American Revolutionary war, the American people were given their lands in “Allodial Title”. Citizens owned all the property free and clear. At some point the U.S. government returned the country to the feudal system of property ownership, forcing an obligation to pay duties / tax.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allodial_title

in the United States, all land is subject to eminent domain by the federal government, and there is thus no true allodial land. Some states within the US (notably Nevada and Texas) have provisions for considering land allodial under state law, but such land remains rare

After the French Revolution allodial title became the norm in France and other civil law countries that were under Napoleonic legal influences.

distinction between common law and equity title helped develop forms of security based on the distinction, now known as the mortgage. Enjoyment of the property during the period where the mortgage was in good standing could be assured through the equity courts, while the right to foreclose on the property to merge the common law and equity title were guaranteed in the common law courts.

when the colonies won the Revolutionary War, they did not want to retain a feudal system of land ownership. The Treaty of Paris (1783), which ended formal hostilities and recognized American independence, also had the effect of ending any residual rights held by the original grantees or the Crown. Essentially, this merely recognized that no person holding land in the new United States owed any allegiance or duty to the Crown or any English noble. There is no specific reference to allodial title in the text of the treaty. Some states created a form of allodial title while others retained the tenurial system with the state as the new ultimate landholder.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allodial_title

In most states, property held by churches for the purpose of worship also has status similar to allodial title.
in all these cases, it is also clear that if the title ceases to be used for the purposes for which it was granted, it reverts to the state or the federal government.

Good enough start.

Yet cachet or not, there is no more important right than the right to be safe and secure within one’s own property...

But I'd say he goes off track here. So far as I can tell, the right to life is more important because without life one doesn't get liberty, the pursuit of happiness, or anything else (leaving aside what may happen in the afterlife). Also, with the words "within one’s own property" he immediately but without saying so hones in on real property, as if there were no other kind of property. "Real property" is not the only kind of property and "property rights" are not limited to real property.

The essay is tolerable as a rant but I don't see it as effective as an essay on "property rights".

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