"The moment the idea
is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and
that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and
tyranny commence."
-John Adams.
"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans
are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call
their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and
themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will
deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend on God, on the courage
and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the
choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore,
to resolve to conquer or die."
-George Washington
"Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: first, a right to life;
secondly, to liberty; thirdly to property; together with the right to support
and defend them in the best manner they can."
-Samuel Adams
"Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever
been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and
have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their
death."
-James Madison
"... whenever the Legislators endeavour to take away, and destroy the Property
of the People, or to reduce them to Slavery under Arbitrary Power, they put
themselves into a state of War with the People, who are thereupon absolved from
any farther Obedience ... [Power then] devolves to the People, who have a Right
to resume their original Liberty, and, by the Establishment of a new Legislative
(such as they shall think fit) provide for their own Safety and Security, which
is the end for which they are in Society."
-John Locke
"All men are created equally free and independent, and have certain inherent
rights, of which they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity;
among which are the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring
and possessing property, and pursuing the obtaining of happiness and safety."
-George Mason
"As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is
regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and
of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth
defending."
-Andrew Jackson
"The system of private property is the most important guaranty of freedom, not
only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not."
-Hayek Fredrich August von
"Private property was the original source of freedom. It still is its main
bulwark."
-Lippmann Walter
On a side note, but still about property-
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their
money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that
will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their
property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their
fathers conquered."
-Thomas Jefferson
Lets not forget the list is not complete without:
"1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to
public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national
bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of
the state.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the
bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil
generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies,
especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition
of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution
of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's
factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial
production, etc."
-Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto