48 PROPERTY IN LAND.
California, does not rest upon conquest, and "if so, may it not be as rightfully acquired by any who are strong enough to seize it?" To this I reply in the affirmative. If exclusive ownership is conferred by conquest, then, not merely, as the Duke says, has it " been open to every con- quering army and every occupying host in all ages and in all countries of the world to establish a similar owner- ship ; " but it is now open, and whenever the masses of Scotland, who have the power, choose to take from the Duke the estates he now holds, he cannot, if this be the basis of his claim, consistently complain.
But I have never admitted that conquest or any other exertion of force can give right. Nor have I ever asserted, but on the contrary have expressly denied, that the present population of California, or any other country, have any exclusive right of ownership in the soil, or can in any way acquire such a right. I hold that the present, the past, or the future population of California, or of any other country, have not, have not had, and cannot have, any right save to the use of the soil, and that as to this their rights are equal. I hold with Thomas Jefferson, that " the earth belongs in usufruct to the living, and that the dead have no power or right over it." I hold that the land was not created for one generation to dispose of, but as a dwelling-place for all generations ; that the men of the present are not bound by any grants of land the men of the past may have made, and cannot grant away the rights of the men of the future. I hold that if all the people of California, or any other country, were to unite in any disposition of the land which ignored the equal right of one of their number, they would be doing a wrong ; and that even if they could grant away their own rights, they are powerless to impair the natural rights of their children. And it is for this reason that I hold that the titles to the ownership of land which the government
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