Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887: Volume 1, Number 1
Philosophy
Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887: Volume 1, Number 1
Medicine -- Periodicals; Phrenology -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
present proprietors of land, and without any convulsions in
the great elements of society.
"Dr. Buchanan explained in his essay, as Mr. George does in his works
now, that he did not mean to annul the existing titles to land. 'Far
from it,' Dr. Buchanan said. 'Such a scheme would be a miserable
climax of folly and injustice, fit only to render the great principle
equally odious and ridiculous.' The doctor insisted that he proposed
to 'maintain in legislation the broad principle that the nation owns
the soil, and that this ownership is paramount to all individual
claims,' and from this fundamental proposition as a corner-stone the
superstructure was to be built up. The present proprietors of the soil
were not to be disturbed in their possession, and the government was
not to interfere in the details of agriculture, renting and leasing
estates, determining possession, etc. But the owners were to be
considered as the tenants of the nation, paying rent to it for the
benefit of the people at large. This rent was to be extremely small at
first, estimated upon the value of the soil alone, without the
improvements, that being the original gift of nature, free to all. It
was to be increased, however, in the course of two generations, until
a rent of about 5 per cent should have been exacted from all the
tenants of the nation--that is, from all who occupied any portion of
the soil. The rent thus raised--a vast revenue--was to be applied to
the establishment of free colleges, free schools, free libraries, and
other institutions calculated to improve and benefit the citizen.
"This is the doctrine, substantially, as put forth at the present time
by Mr. George, and by so many persons supposed to be entirely new.
Again we remark that 'there is nothing new under the sun.'"
This subject will be taken up hereafter in the JOURNAL OF MAN. Its
progress as a policy will be noted, its writers reviewed, and the
dictates of dispassionate science presented. It is too late to
intercept the folly and crime that have surrendered the rights of the
people in the American continent, but not too late to begin
reclamation of our lost sovereignty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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