Individual citizens cannot therefore lay any claim to lawful property in
land as to anything[6] produced by their own hands." The state in this
case, as the representative of the rights and interests of society, decides
how the land shall be divided among the members of the community, and the
rules laid down by the state to regulate this matter are of the first and
highest importance in determining the civil condition of the country and
the prosperity of the people. Whenever but one class among the people
is privileged to have property in land a most exclusive oligarchy is
formed.[7] When the land is held in small portions by a great number and
nobody is legally or practically excluded from acquiring land, there we
find provided the elements of democracy.
According to the strictest right of conquest in antiquity the defeated lost
not only their personal freedom, their moveable and landed[8] property, but
even life itself. All was at the mercy of the conquerors. In practice a
modification of this right took place and in Rome extreme severity was
applied only in extreme cases, generally as a punishment for treason.[9]
This magnanimity was not rare and it even went so far as to restore the
whole of the territory to the people subdued.
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