THE "REDUCTION TO INIQUITY." 47
The Eighth Commandment does not derive its validity from human enactment. It is written upon the facts of nature and self-evident to the perceptions of men. If there were but two men in the world, the fish which either of them took from the sea, the beast which he captured in the chase, the fruit which he gathered, or the hut which he erected, would be his rightful property, which the other could not take from him without violation of the moral law. But how could either of them claim the world as his rightful property? Or if they agreed to divide the world between them, what moral right could their compact give as against the next man who came into the world ?
It is needless, however, to insist that property in land rests only on human enactment, which may, at any time, be changed without violation of moral law. No one seri- ously asserts any other derivation. It is sometimes said that property in land is derived from appropriation. But those who say this do not really mean it. Appropriation can give no right. The man who raises a cupful of water from a river, acquires a right to that cupful, and no one may rightfully snatch it from his hand ; but this right is derived from labor, not from appropriation. How could he acquire a right to the river, by merely appropriating it? Columbus did not dream of appropriating the New World to himself and his heirs, and would have been deemed a lunatic had he done so. Nations and princes divided America between them, but by " right of strength." This, and this alone, it is that gives any validity to appro- priation. And this, evidently, is what they really mean who talk of the right given by appropriation.
This " right of conquest," this power of the strong, is the only basis of property in land to which the Duke ven- tures to refer. He does so in asking whether the exclusive right of ownership to the territory of California, which, according to him, I attribute to the existing people of
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