I believe that all persons have an equal right to the soil. The Maker of the earth has provided one home, not two homes, for each person; not two farms, but one farm for each farmer.
— GERRIT SMITH, Speech in U. S. Congress (1854), Speeches of Gerrit Smith, p. 232.
Searching my files on Smith, I find these references to "equal right" in his Speeches:
RESOLUTIONS ON THE PUBLIC LANDS.
JANUARY 16, 1854.
Mr. Smith, of New-York. I beg leave to offer the following
resolutions.
The Clerk read the resolutions, as follows:
Whereas, all the members of the human family, notwithstanding all
contrary enactments and arrangements, have at all times, and in all
circumstances, as equal a right to the soil as to the light and air,
because as equal a natural need of the one as of the other; And
whereas, this invariably equal right to the soil leaves no room to
buy,
or sell, or give it away; Therefore,
1. Resolved, That no bill or proposition should find any favor with
Congress, which implies the right of Congress to dispose of the
public
lands or any part of them, either by sale or gift.
2. Resolved, That the duty of civil government in regard to public
lands, and indeed to all lands, is but to regulate the occupation of
them; and that this regulation should ever proceed upon the
principle
that the right of all persons to the soil—to the great source of
human
subsistence—is as equal, as inherent, and as sacred, as the right to
life itself.
3. Resolved, That Government will have done but little toward
securing
the equal right to land, until it shall have made essential to the
validity of every claim to land both the fact that it is actually
possessed, and the fact that it does not exceed in quantity the
maximum
which it is the duty of Government to prescribe.
4. Resolved, That it is not because land monopoly is the most
efficient
cause of inordinate and tyrannical riches on the one hand, and of
dependent and abject poverty on the other; and that it is not
because
it is, therefore, the most efficient cause of that inequality of
condition so well-nigh fatal to the spread of democracy and
Christianity, that Government is called upon to abolish it; but it
is
because the right which this mighty agent of evil violates and
tramples
under foot is among those clear, certain, essential, natural rights
which it is the province of Government to protect at all hazarda and
irrespective of all consequences. ...
another speech:
This bill, as I view it, is an
acknowledgment, that the public lands belong, not to the
Government,
but to the landless.
Whilst I hope, that the bill will prevail, I nevertheless can hardly
hope, that a majority of the Committee will approve my reasons for
it.
Indeed, if the Committee shall so much as tolerate me, in putting
forth
these reasons, it is all I can expect, in the light of the fate of
the
land reform resolutions, which I offered in this Hall, the 16th
January
last. The storm of indignation, which burst upon those resolutions,
did, I confess, not a little surprise me. The angry words, which
came
sounding over into this part of the Hall, quite startled me. Even
the
reading of the resolutions by the Clerk was hardly borne with; and,
no
sooner had they been read, than, with hot haste, they were nailed to
the table for ever and ever.
And what are those resolutions, that they should have excited such
displeasure? Why, their chief and controlling doctrine is, that men
have a natural and equal right to the soil. And is this such a
monstrous doctrine, as to make me guilty of a great offence — of an
outrage on propriety — for offering the resolutions? It cannot be
said,
that they were expressed in indecent or profane language — in
language
offensive to purity or piety. Why, then, were they so treated? I am
not
at liberty to suppose, that it was from dislike to their author. It
must be because their leading doctrine is so very wrong in the eyes
of
the honorable gentlemen around me. Now I am aware, that many of the
doctrines, which I utter in this Hall, are very wrong in their eyes.
But should they not remember, that their counter doctrines are no
less
wrong in my eyes? And yet, I appeal to all, whether I have ever
evinced
even the slightest impatience or kindness under anything I have
heard
here? and whether the equal footing, on which we find ourselves
here,
does not require, as well that patience and kindness should be
accorded
to me, as by
me? However we may regard each other out of this Hall, certain
it
is,
that, if, in this Hall, we do not regard each other as gentlemen
entitled to mutual and perfect respect, we shall dishonor ourselves,
and our constituency, and civil government itself.
and
What I have here supposed in my argument is abundantly — alas! but
too
abundantly — justified by facts. Land monopoly has reduced no small
share of the human family to abject and wretched dependence, for it
has
shut them out from the great source of subsistence, and frightfully
increased the precariousness of life. Unhappy Ireland illustrates
the
great power of land monopoly for evil. The right to so much as a
standing place on the earth is denied to the great mass of her
people.
Their great impartial Father has placed them on the earth; and, in
placing them on it, has irresistibly implied their right to live of
it.
Nevertheless, land monopoly tells them, that they are trespassers,
and
treats them as trespassers. Even when most indulgent, land monopoly
allows them nothing better than to pick up the crumbs of the barest
existence; and, when, in his most rigorous moods, the monster
compels
them to starve and die by millions. Ireland — poor,
land-monopoly-cursed and famine-wasted Ireland — has still a
population of some six millions; and yet it is only six thousand
persons, who have monopolized her soil. Scotland has some three
millions of people; and three thousand is the number of the
monopolists
of her soil. England and Wales contain some eighteen millions of
people, and the total number of those, who claim exclusive right to
the
soil of England and Wales, is thirty thousand. I may not be rightly
informed, as to the numbers of the land monopolists in those
countries;
but whether they are twice as great, or half as great, as I have
given
them, is quite immaterial to the essence of my argument against land
monopoly. I would say in this connection, that land monopoly, or the
accumulation of the land in the hands of the few, has increased very
rapidly in England. A couple of centuries ago, there were several
times
as many English land-holders, as there are now.
I need say no more to prove, that land monopoly is a very high
crime,
and that it is the imperative duty of Government to put a stop to
it.
Were the monopoly of the light and air practicable, and were the
monopolists of these elements (having armed themselves with title
deeds
to them) to sally forth and threaten the people of one town with a
vacuum, in case they are unwilling or unable to buy their supply of
air; and threaten the people of another town with total darkness, in
case they will not or cannot buy their supply of light; there,
confessedly, would be no higher duty on Government than to put an
end
to such wicked and death-dealing monopolies. But these monopolies
would
not differ in principle from land monopoly; and they would be no
more
fatal to the enjoyments of human existence, and to human existence
itself, than land monopoly has proved itself capable of being. Why
land
monopoly has not swept the earth of all good, is not because it is
unadapted and inadequate to that end, but because it has been only
partially carried out.
The right of a man to the soil, the light, and the air, is to so
much
of each of them, as he needs, and no more; and for so long as he
lives,
and no longer. In other words, this dear mother earth, with her
never-failing nutritious bosom; and this life-preserving air, which
floats around it; and this sweet light, which visits it, are all
owned
by each present generation, and are equally owned by all the members
of
such generation. Hence, whatever the papers or parchments regarding
the
soil, which we may pass between ourselves, they can have no
legitimate
power to impair the equal right to it, either of the persons, who
compose this generation, or of the persons, who shall compose the
next.
It is a very glaring assumption on the part of one generation to
control the distribution and enjoyment of natural rights for another
generation. We of the present generation have no more liberty to
provide, that one person of the next generation shall have ten
thousand
acres and another but ten acres, than we have to provide, that one
person of the next generation shall live a hundred years and another
but a hundred days; and no more liberty to provide, that a person of
the next generation shall be destitute of land, than that he shall
be
destitute of light or air. They, who compose a generation, are, so
far
as natural rights are concerned, absolutely entitled to a free and
equal start in life; and that equality is not to be disturbed, and
that
freedom is not to be encumbered, by any arrangements of the
preceding
generation.
and
I do not forget, that the Declaration of Independence has fallen
into
disrepute among the degenerate sons of the men, who adopted it. They
ridicule it, and call it "a fanfaronade of nonsense." It will be
ridiculed, in proportion as American slavery increases. It will be
respected, in proportion as American slavery declines. Even members
of
Congress charge it with saying, that men are born with equal
strength,
equal beauty, and equal brains. For my own part, I can impute no
such
folly to Thomas Jefferson and his fellow-laborers. I understand the
Declaration of Independence to say, that men are born with an equal
right to use what is respectively theirs. To illustrate its meaning,
at
this point:—if I am born with but one foot, and one eye, and an
organization capable of receiving but one idea, I have a right to
use
my one foot, and one eye, and one idea, equal with the right of my
neighbor to use his two feet, and two eyes, and two thousand ideas.
and
I argue the duty of Government to suppress polygamy on just the
principles that I argue the duty of Government to suppress land
monopoly. I believe that all persons have an equal right to the
soil.
The Maker of the earth has provided one home, not two homes, for
each
person: not two farms, but one farm, for each farmer. The right to
the
soil is natural and equal. So, sir, the right of each man to one
wife,
and each woman to one husband, is a natural right: and for one man
to
get more than one wife, or for one woman to get more than one
husband,
is to violate this natural right, which it is the duty of Government
to
protect.
The word of God shows that nature provides but one wife for one man,
and one husband for one woman. That word teaches us that He "made
them
male and female"—not male and females, nor female and males. And if
there are any present who do not bow to the authority of that word,
I
would point such to the census. The census in every country, and in
every age, shows that the sexes are numerically equal, and that the
arrangements of Providence forbid polygamy.
and
The truth is, that our rapid progress in population, wealth, and power, has made us forgetful of the equal rights of the nations of the earth. We are disposed to measure our rights by our prosperity; and to disparage the rights of others, in the degree, that their prosperity falls short of our own. In our boundless self-conceit, our might, either already is, or is very soon to be, boundless. And, as is to be expected in such a case, we are already acting on, if not in terms avowing, the maxim, that might makes right.
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