This was the keystone of Jefferson's social system at that time. It is not unimportant to note that it was a doctrine that could apply only to Anglo-Saxon colonies, more particularly to American colonies, and not a doctrine susceptible of universal application. Whether or not the principle might also be advanced by other peoples or nations, Jefferson did not state and did not care. His was not a mind to generalize and to extend universally any given principle. For the present, at least, he was satisfied to claim for the American settlers not the rights of man, but the rights of their Saxon ancestors. His position was legal and historical, not philosophical. It was also to some extent an aristocratic position. Since the land was theirs by right of conquest, it almost necessarily ensued that only landowners, or to use the old colonial word, freeholders, were entitled to the rights, privileges, and happiness of self-government. The consequence was not expressed but it was implied. The analogy with the doctrine of the Physiocrats strikes one at first; but this analogy is only superficial. True enough, only freeholders are really worth considering and can raise a legitimate protest; but in a country as new and as extensive as America, it is within the power of every inhabitant to become a freeholder. For it is another iniquity to suppose that the Crown has the right to give grants of land: It is time for us to lay this matter before his Majesty, and to declare, that he has no right to grant lands of himself. From the nature and purpose of civil institutions, all the lands within the limits, which any particular party has circumscribed around itself, are assumed by that society, and subject to their allotment; this may be done by themselves assembled collectively, or by their legislature, to whom they may have delegated sovereign authority; and, if they are alloted in neither of these ways, each individual of the society may appropriate to himself such lands as he finds vacant, and occupancy gives him title.