Foundations of American Environmental Thought and Action 19
began to use it acquired therein a kind of tran-
sient property, that lasted so long as he was using
it, and no longer....
But when mankind increased in number,
craft, and ambition, it became necessary to enter-
tain conceptions of more permanent dominion;
and to appropriate to individuals not the immedi-
ate use only, but the very substance of the thing
to be used. Otherwise innumerable tumults must
have arisen, and the good order of the world been
continually broken and disturbed....
* * *
Property, both in lands and moveables, being
thus originally acquired by the first taker, which
taking amounts to a declaration that he intends
to appropriate the thing to his own use, it remains
in him, by the principles of universal law, till such
time as he does some other act which shews an
intention to abandon it: for then it becomes, natu-
rally speaking, publici juris once more, and is liable
to be again appropriated by the next occupant....
But this method of one man's abandoning
his property, and another seising the vacant pos-
session, however well founded in theory, could
not long subsist in fact. It was calculated merely
for the rudiments of civil society, and necessar-
ily ceased among the complicated interests and
artificial refinements of polite and established
governments. In these it was found, that what
became inconvenient or useless to one man was
highly convenient and useful to another; who
was ready to give in exchange for it some equiv-
alent, that was equally desirable to the former
proprietor. Thus mutual convenience introduced
commercial traffic, and the reciprocal transfer of
property by sale, grant, or conveyance.
Source: William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of
England, Vol. 2 (Philadelphia: Bell, 1771-1772), pp. 2-4, 9.There is nothing which so generally strikes
the imagination, and engages the affections of
mankind, as the right of property; or that sole
and despotic dominion which one man claims
and exercises over the external things of the
world, in total exclusion of the right of any other
individual in the universe. And yet there are very
few, that will give themselves the trouble to con-
sider the original and foundation of this right....
In the beginning of the world, we are
informed by holy writ, the all-bountiful creator
gave to man, “dominion over all the earth; and
over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the
air, and over every living thing that moveth upon
the earth.” This is the only true and solid foun-
dation of man's dominion over external things,
whatever airy metaphysical notions may have
been started by fanciful writers upon this sub-
ject. The earth therefore, and all things therein,
are the general property of all mankind, exclu-
sive of other beings, from the immediate gift of
the creator. And, while the earth continued bare
of inhabitants, it is reasonable to suppose, that
all was in common among them, and that every
one took from the public stock to his own use
such things as his immediate necessities required.
These general notions of property were then
sufficient to answer all the purposes of human life;
and might perhaps still have answered them, had
it been possible for mankind to have remained in a
state of primaeval simplicity: as may be collected
from the manners of many American nations
when first discovered by the Europeans; and from
the antient method of living among the first Euro-
peans themselves.... Not that this communion
of goods seems ever to have been applicable, even
in the earliest ages, to ought but the substance of
the thing; nor could it be extended to the use of it.
For, by the law of nature and reason, he who first
Document 18: William Blackstone’s On the Rights of Things (1765-1769)
William Blackstone's history of the doctrines of English law greatly influenced the development of jurisprudence
in the United States, and the roots of American law concerning property rights can be traced to this seminal work.
Private property and property rights would become core areas of contention in the ongoing environmental debate.