May 16, 1867, "Land for the Landless".
In response to the proposal of Sumner, Stevens, Phillips of the Anti-Slavery Association, and others that to consolidate liberty and equality the Freedmen and poor whites of the South be provided 40 acres of land per head of household from the holdings of the erstwhile rebel slavocracy, to be confiscated and not bought, the editors of the famous political magazine freak in righteous indignation at the idea of such wicked betrayal of the rights of legitimate owners of property to satisfy mere contemptible and brutal lust for political vengeance.
A division of rich men's land among the landless, as the result of a triumph at the polls, would give a shock to our whole social and political system from which it would hardly recover without the loss of liberty.
Every election would thenceforward threaten property, and men of property, we may be sure, would find, as they have found under similar circumstances in all countries, the means of protecting themselves - but not through constitutional government.
. . . .
No man in America has any right to anything which he has not honestly earned, or which the lawful owner has not thought proper to give him.
They sound more like some threatening diatribe of CATO against Obamacare than anything in today's Nation, don't they?
Hilarious, if it wasn't so tragic.
Reading A Just and Lasting Peace.
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