H 7S’2 A- inC'o/n Koosn 
 
 [American Tract, No 5. Octavo Series.] 
 
 THE HOMESTEAD. 
 
 Man has a right to land. There is not a single instance among the animal 
 tribes of one being systematically deprived of the means necessary to its ex¬ 
 istence by others of its own kind. No All-Wise Power ever designed that 
 man alone, of all animated existences, should be dependent on his fellow for 
 the means of supplying his natural wants; that one portion of the race should 
 be forced by another to labor for the subsistence of both : it is through igno¬ 
 rance and fraud that this wrong has been perpetrated ; but its day is nearly 
 over. It is not the intention here to argue this question of Right: it is a truth 
 so obvious as only to require statement to make its way rapidly through the 
 world, that Man has a Right to Land. 
 
 Yet in this so-called free country many are deprivedof this right. Although, 
 to enable every family to enjoy their right to the land, it is necessary that no 
 one should monopolize more than a fair share, this just principle has been lost 
 sight of, and a large portion of the people are deprived of their birthright, de¬ 
 graded, and made to labor for the support of idlers. 
 
 The right having been discovered, it is now necessary to restore it. No 
 generation of men could have the right to make bargains or regulations to de¬ 
 prive any portion of any future generation of their natural inheritance. No 
 individual of a generation could have a right to part with his own inheritance, 
 and thereby subject himself or his family to a slavish dependence. The right 
 to the soil is inalienable, and this now being well ascertained, it would be 
 atrocious to allow another generation to pass away with the great and growing 
 wrong of Land Monopoly unredressed. How, then, in the safest, speediest, 
 most humane, and most effectual way shall the soil be restored to the people, 
 so that every family may enjoy the possession of an Independent Freehold ? 
 The National Reformers propose three measures to bring about the desired 
 result. 
 
 I. —LAND LIMITATION. 
 
 In strict justice, the landless ought to be put in immediate possession of 
 their fair share of the appropriated soil, and to receive compensation (as far as 
 possible) from the monopolists for the loss of education, property, and other 
 deprivations they have suffered for want of their Birthright. But, on the one 
 hand, the monopolists would say they had “ purchased,” or “ mixed up their 
 labor with,” the soil rightfully belonging to the landless, while on the other 
 hand, the plundered are, from the very nature of their grievance, too unen¬ 
 lightened and dependent to assert at once their entire right. Fortunately, how¬ 
 ever, the nature of the existing system is such that the landless and the land¬ 
 holders are occasionally changing situations, the monopolists having no security 
 for a transmission of their possessions to their own offspring ; for which reason 
 nearly all landholders possessing only their proper share, and all enlightened 
 men even among the monopolists, will be willing to provide a better system for 
 the future by preventing any one hereafter from acquiring more than one share 
 of the common inheritance. This single provision, as all will see,would cause 
 all to be freeholders in one generation, and gradually, as the process of resto¬ 
 ration went on, the landless would become less dependent, and the social con¬ 
 dition of the whole people would gradually improve in about the same ratio 
 that it now grows worse. 
 
 The operation would be this: the limitation having been decided on, (say a 
 maximum of ICO acres for a farm,) whenever a monopolist died, the surplus 
 above the limited quantity for each of his heirs must be sold, (to landless pur¬ 
 chasers of course,) and the heirs take the proceeds of the sale. Thus the heirs 
 would be sure to get the full value of their ancestors’ improvements, and the 
 
■> 
 
 INALIENABLE HOMESTEAD. 
 
 landless would gradually gain, what they ought to have been born with, a 
 
 FOOTHOLD ON THE EARTH. 
 
 It will also be necessary to provide a limit for city and village lots, for, al¬ 
 though the price of land in cities and villages would reduce, as thelandless left 
 them to become freeholders in the country, till none were left that could not 
 profitably be employed and eligibly situated, some Astor or Trinity Corporation, 
 if there were no limit, might take a fancy to monopolize 100 acres of lots and 
 keep them vacant or compel the people to become their tenants. No family 
 in a city or village should be allowed hereafter to acquire a second lot for the 
 purpose of exacting Rent, ©r more than two under any circumstances ; that is, 
 one for a residence, and one for a place of business. Ponder well, Tenants, on 
 the change of your condition, that this measure would produce. 
 
 I I. —I N ALIEN ABLE HOMESTEAD. 
 
 The proper object of government is, to protect the people in all their natural 
 rights ; to secure to them their Homesteads, on which they mav obtain a subsist- 
 ence, and their right to do or say anything not infringing on others' rights to do 
 or sav; to do the public works that individuals cannot do ; and then to let the 
 people alone. 
 
 The first and most essential right is the free use of land, upon which to ob¬ 
 tain food, clothing, and shelter. This secured, men are in a condition to obtain 
 and protect all their other rights, and to devise the best possible modes of en¬ 
 joying them. Without this, the landless must, for the most part, be slaves in 
 some form or other, to those who have possession of the earth. By the pos¬ 
 session of wealth, some, without being landholders, may enjoy temporary ad¬ 
 vantages, may exalt themselves above others, and purchase or coerce the ser¬ 
 vices of the landless poor; but there can be no true freedom without a Free 
 Home, no true state of society where that right is not secured to all. 
 
 Homes can be secured to all by a common possession of the land, or by an 
 equitable apportionment. In many ages and countries the land has been held in 
 common, and may again be so held. But, so much false selfishness has been 
 engendered by the present inequitable system of landholding among us, that 
 there is very little hope or desire that the land should now be held in common. 
 The want of the age is, that the present, inequitable apportionment should give 
 place to a just arrangement. None should starve in a State that has land 
 enough to subsist its population : no one should be compelled to labor for 
 another except for a full and fair equivalent. The security of a sufficient 
 Homestead would be the surest guarantee of the means of subsistence to all will¬ 
 ing to labor for them. 
 
 To secure Homes to all, it is quite obvious, first, that a limit must be decided 
 upon as the maximum of a family Homestead, and this maximum should be 
 such as would, if possible, not only allow to every family a sufficient allotment, 
 but preserve allotments for the probable increase of population for a reasonable 
 time to come ; and, secondly, that each man's house should be his castle, free 
 from mortgage, and from which he could not beejected, but by his own consent, 
 and that of his wife if he had one. 
 
 To allow mortgages, even if sales could only be made to landless persons, 
 would be to keep up the monopoly price of land. The Mortgage is only 
 another and frequently most oppressive form of Rent. If it be desirable to 
 enable the landless to become freeholders sooner than they would under the 
 plan of letting monopolies die out with their possessors, rather than allow the 
 mischief-making mortgage, let it be provided that monopolists be required to 
 sell out in a given time. The Homestead must be made inalienable, except 
 only when the header heads of the family voluntarily choose to transfer it to a 
 landless person. 
 
FREEDOM OF THE PUBLIC LANDS. 
 
 o 
 
 III. —FREEDOM OF THE PUBLIC LANDS. 
 
 In a State having established a legal limit to the future individual acquisi¬ 
 tion of land within its borders, in one generation all the land monopolies of that 
 State would necessarily be broken up ; and if other States had in the meantime 
 come into the measure, (as they would do rapidly,) after the landless were all 
 supplied with allotments, the remainder of the land would escheat to the State 
 and become public land. This as well as all other lands in possession of the 
 State, and all in possession of the United States, should be properly apportion¬ 
 ed in farms and lots, and made free to those becoming of age landless or to those 
 who might prefer to sell to such their possessions. (See TractYoung America.”) 
 
 Thus by the operation of three plain, practicable measures, based upon the 
 impregnable principle of Man's Equal Right to the Soil, in one generation 
 every family, in every State that shall adopt them, will be in possession of 
 Homesteads guaranteed, as long as they choose to occupy them, by the State. 
 At the end of one generation, all the unoccupied land would be public land, 
 instead of speculators’, and would be an unfailing resource, for all the youth who 
 might find it necessary to swarm like bees from a hive, from the family 
 Homestead. 
 
 On the Public Lands the township might be laid out, before settlement, on 
 the best plan that could be devised in conformity with the present division of 
 labor and state of civilization among the people. On the lands already occupied, 
 after the maximum limit should be established, some beneficial arrangements 
 might be adopted to bring order out of the present chaotic divisions. But the 
 great first object is to secure the maximum Limitation. 
 
 There is no family but wants a Homestead. Whatever be a man’s occupa- 
 pation, he wants a house to shelter his family. If he can secure land in a 
 location suitable for his business he will find means to build him a house. A 
 garden is desirable, and every family not overworked to pay rent may cultivate 
 one. In New-York, already, ihree-fourths of the people pay, directly and indi 
 reetly, one half of their earnings for rent, that the rent-receivers, may live like 
 drones in a hive, without labor. Like drones they must expect to be expelled 
 violently, when the oppression becomes intolerable, unless the mild preventive 
 proposed by the National Reformers be adopted. 
 
 Every city is growing to be a New-York : every village is striving to be a 
 city. Land monopolies drive people in excess to the villages and cities. The 
 excess is when the first rent is collected, when there is one family that cannot 
 have a home. “ If you pile up in large cities, as in Europe,” said Jefferson, 
 “ you will become corrupt as in Europe, and go to eating one another as they 
 do there !” These words of Jefferson, it is now proved, were prophetic. There 
 is no remedy but Land Limitation. 
 
 In the State that shall first adopt Land Limitation, and the Inalienable Home¬ 
 stead principle, will the most be obtained for the lands brought into the market 
 oy that measure, because, on the death of a land monopolist, the purchasers 
 would not only be from the State itself but from the surrounding States. Such 
 would be the desire to settle in a State in which the Homestead was secured and 
 land provided for each child, that, for a time, posset dons would sell as high., under 
 the limit, as the lands did before ; and this, perhaps, would go on until the adjoin¬ 
 ing States should adopt the same measures, which they must do or lose their best 
 population. As the vacant tracts now in the hands of monopolists became occupied 
 by industrious settlers, not only would it he so much easier to make and improve 
 the ordinary necessary roads and bridges;, not only would the people have bet- 
 
4 
 
 THE HOMESTEAD. 
 
 ter “ home markets,” but the people would be enabled to make and possess for 
 their own benefit the railroads, plankroads, canals, and all other improvements 
 now monopolized by chartered companies, who pet paid for them over and over 
 and over again, and still own them at last, building up nonproducing, corrupt¬ 
 ing, dangerous aristocracies throughout the land. Land Limitation would be 
 for the true interest of all. 
 
 For Land Limitation, then, we must vote : thanks to those patriots, heroes, 
 and martyrs w ho secured to us the power to vote, that our own will, based on 
 the eternal principle of justice, should be the law of the land. If we do not 
 vote this, we shall lose the power to vote at all. Capital will become richer; 
 Labor, poorer. Capital will grow tyrannical as it grows rich. When the La¬ 
 borer must beg of the Capitalist work, or bread, he is in a fair way to sell his 
 vote, and Capital will soon coerce enough votes to control the whole. 
 
 We must'vote now , before it comes to that, or our children will have no 
 resource but to fight; and they will suffer much before they will fight. Wit¬ 
 ness Ireland. 
 
 Vote, then, now and forever, till we triumph, for Land Limitation, for the 
 Inalienable Homestead, for the Freedom of the Public Lands; and, while we 
 vote for these radical measures, let us vote, as corrective^, for the Ten Hour 
 system in chartered factories and on public works, and for a of dis¬ 
 
 proportionate official salaries. Vote for no men, under any circumsSRes, who 
 will not pledge themselves in writing to these measures. Vote yourself afarm, 
 or a lot, upon which you may be a free man. Never was anything so just and 
 so great before carried to the ballot box. 
 
 Vote that your sons may not be reduced to serfdom, or your daughters to 
 drudgery. 
 
 Vote that those out of employ may go to the land and employ themselves. 
 Vote that rents may get cheaper, and labor dearer. Vote that times may get 
 better instead of worse. 
 
 The land was not made that some might ride over it, “ booted and spurred r ' 
 on the backs of the others. Then why not vote, for yourself and everybody 
 else, a Homestead ? 
 
 There are always those who prognosticate defeat to every good thing pro¬ 
 posed to benefit mankind. Shortsightedness and false selfishness are necessary 
 results of the present monopoly of the means of existence. To predicta fail¬ 
 ure of the Free Soil movement is to distrust the efficacy of the ballot, the power 
 of truth, and the force of justice. This reform must succeed, because it is just 
 and radical. The farmers have three-fourths and more of all the votes. 
 Not one in ten of the farmers can secure homes to their children under the pre¬ 
 sent system. A still smaller proportion of mechanics can do so, and a smaller 
 proportion yet of miners and seamen. Homes for all can be secured by the 
 Free Soil measures ; and, at the same time, the farmers, mechanics, miners, 
 sailors, and laborers will be relieved of the support of an expensive aristocracy 
 who would otherwise hold the land and become bloated, besotted, and murder¬ 
 ous, like other landed aristocracies. 
 
 National Reform, therefore, must succeed. A Free Soil will he secured! 
 And the only effect of lethargy and croaking will be to prolong the reign of Land 
 Monopoly in America. One, two, or mayhap half-a-dozen years, and subject 
 Europe to another famine before a Free Soil can be established there. One 
 coward may prevent a victory, or cause a defeat. One laggard may, by re¬ 
 tarding a just reform, protract the sufferings and miseries of countless thousands ! 
 
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