Understanding Private Property Rights

James Madison the architect of our Constitution and structure of government wrote of private property and a just government’s role in preserving it. He began by saying just what property is: “That domain which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual.” However, he was quick to amend his definition to include “… every other thing which a man may attach a value and have a right; and leaves to every one else the like advantage.” Thus, he includes a person’s opinions and the free communication of them, his religious values and practices and his safety, liberty and leisure.  But he says the most sacred property is a man’s conscience, therefore, “… as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.” Finally, Madison asserts that the end of just government is to “… impartially secure to every man whatever is his own.”