Property rights and liberty in eighteenth-century American colonies
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Colonists' notions of liberty and property change in the 1700s
CORRELATION BETWEEN LIBERTY and PROPERTY RIGHTS WITH AMERICAN COLONISTS
The evolutionary connection between a mere rebellion against the taxation measures imposed by England and the notions of liberty and total independence that grew with the colonists in the 1700s is property. Indeed, the notions of liberty and property go hand in hand, so it was difficult for colonists, especially after the notion of property was well implemented in the colonies, in the second half of the 18th century, to understand that this did not come with full scale liberty. It was also illogical and incomprehensible that you could own your own land, your own house and your own farms, but you could not own the right to do as you please with them. In this sense, it was also judicially unsound, because generally the ownership over something confers full rights over that something. As such, "property is surely a right of mankind as really as liberty.... The moment, the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the laws of God and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence."
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