Thomas Jefferson understood the importance of private property for all and most especially the poor. |
Letter from Thomas Jefferson to James Madison on Private Property
Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were political
allies and personal friends. Over the course of their lifetime, they wrote many
personal letters where they shared and debated the ideas which helped shape the
American system of government. This letter was written while Jefferson was
visiting France. He had spent the day walking through a portion of the French
countryside, 40 miles from Paris, where the French aristocrats often vacationed.
In his letter he notes the vast amount of land left uncultivated, reserved for
the aristocrats recreation and hunting, while the largest class of the French
population was landless and poor. He believed America should strive for a more
just and equal division of land where the citizens would be able to achieve
prosperity through hard work and the ownership of property. In his letter to
Madison he begins defining his belief that the small landowner is one of the
most important parts of the state.
Dear Sir,
Seven o’clock, and retired to
my fireside, I have determined to enter into conversation with you…
As soon as I had got clear of
the town I fell in with a poor woman walking at the same rate with myself and
going the same course. Wishing to know the condition of the laboring poor I
entered into conversation with her, which I began by enquiries for the path
which would lead me into the mountain: and thence proceeded to enquiries into
her vocation, condition and circumstances. She told me she was a day laborer at
8 sous or 4d. sterling the day: that she had two children to maintain, and to
pay a rent of 30 livres for her house (which would consume the hire of 75 days),
that often she could get no employment and of course was without bread. As we
had walked together near a mile and she had so far served me as a guide, I gave
her, on parting, 24 sous. She burst into tears of gratitude which I could
perceive was unfeigned because she was unable to utter a word. She had probably
never before received so great an aid. This little attendrissement, with the
solitude of my walk, led me into a train of reflections on that unequal division
of property which occasions the numberless instances of wretchedness which I had
observed in this country and is to be observed all over Europe.
The property of this country is
absolutely concentrated in a very few hands, having revenues of from half a
million of guineas a year downwards. These employ the flower of the country as
servants, some of them having as many as 200 domestics, not laboring. They
employ also a great number of manufacturers and tradesmen, and lastly the class
of laboring husbandmen. But after all there comes the most numerous of all
classes, that is, the poor who cannot find work. I asked myself what could be
the reason so many should be permitted to beg who are willing to work, in a
country where there is a very considerable proportion of uncultivated lands?
These lands are undisturbed only for the sake of game. I should seem then that
it must be because of the enormous wealth of the proprietors which places them
above attention to the increase of their revenues by permitting these lands to
be labored. I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable,
but the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the
bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing
property, only taking care to let their subdivision go hand in hand with the
natural affections of the human mind. The descent of property of every kind
therefore to all the children, or to all the brothers and sisters, or other
relations in equal degree, is a politic measure and a practicable one. Another
means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from
taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions or property in
geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there are in any country
uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property
have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a
common stock for man to labor and live on. If for the encouragement of industry
we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be
provided to those excluded from the appropriation. If we do not, the fundamental
right to labor the earth returns to the unemployed. It is too soon yet in our
country to say that every man who cannot find employment, but who can find
uncultivated land, shall be at liberty to cultivate it, paying a moderate rent.
But it is not too soon to provide by every possible means that as few as
possible shall be without a little portion of land. The small landholders are
the most precious part of the state.
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