dissolution of incorporated insurance companies, by order of the Chancellor, upon application of the directors, and for good cause shown; and the Court of Chancery, when it decreed a dissolution of the corporation, was to direct a due distribution of the funds, and to appoint trustees for that purpose. The act of 1825 was much broader in its provisions. It contained many directions calculated to check abuses in the management of all moneyed incorporations, and to facilitate the recovery of debts against them. All transfers, by incorporated companies, in contemplation. of bankruptcy, were declared void; and if any incorporated bank should become insolvent, or violate its charter, the Chancellor was authorized by process of injunction, to restrain the exercise of its powers, and to appoint a receiver, and cause the effects of the company to be distributed among the creditors. This was a statute of bankruptcy, in relation to incorporated banks.

a Sess. 48. ch. 325.

HAVING Concluded a series of lectures on the various rights of persons, I proceed next to the examination of the law of property, which has always occupied a pre-eminent place in the municipal codes of every civilized people. I purpose to begin with the law of personal property, as it has appeared to me to be the most natural and easy transition, from the subjects which we have already discussed. This is the species of property which first arises, and is cultivated in the rudest ages; and when commerce and the arts have ascended to distinguished heights, it maintains its level if it does not rise even superior to property in land itself, in the influence which it exercises over the talents, the passions, and the destiny of mankind.

To suppose a state of man prior to the existence of any notions of separate property, when all things were common, and when men, throughout the world, lived without law or government, in innocence and simplicity, is quite fanciful, if it be not altogether a dream of the imagination. It is the golden age of the poets, which forms such a delightful pic ture in the fictions, adorned by the muse of Hesiod, Lucrotius, Ovid, and Virgil. It has been truly observed, that

the first man who was born into the world, killed the Becond; and when did the times of simplicity begin? And yet we find the Roman historians and philosophers," rivalling the language of poetry in their descriptions of some imaginary state of nature, which it was impossible to know, and idle to conjecture. No such state was intended for man in the benevolent dispensations of pro dence; and in following the migrations of nations, apart from the book of Genesis, human curiosity is unable to penetrate beyond the pages of genuine history; and Homer, Herodotus, and Livy, carry us back to the confines of the fabulous ages. The sense of property is inherent in the human breast, and the gradual enlargement and cultivation of that sense, from its feeble force in the savage state, to its full vigour and maturity among polished nations, forms a very, instructive portion of the history of civil society.b Man was fitted and intended by the author of his being, for society and government, and for the acquisition and enjoyment of property. It is, to speak correctly, the law of his nature; and by obedience to this law, he brings all his faculties into exercise, and is enabled to display the various and exalted powers of the human mind.

Occupancy, doubtless, gave the first title to property in lands and moveables. It is the natural and originalmethod of acquiring it; and upon the principles of universal law, that title continues so long as occ pancy continues. There is no person, even in his rudest state, who does not feel and acknowledge, in a greater or less degree, the justice of this title. The right of property, founded on occupancy, is suggested to the human mind, by feeling and reason, prior to the influence of positive institutions. There have been modern theorists, who have considered separate and

a Sallust Cat. sect. 6. Jugur sect. 18. Tacit. Ann. 1. 3. sec. 26. Cic. Orat pro P. Sextio, sect 42 Justin. lib. 43. ch. 1.

b Lord Kames considers the sense of property to be a natural appetite, and in its nature, a great blessing. Sketches of the History of Man, b. 1. sk. 2.

r Grotius, Jure E. & P. b. 2. c. 3. scc. 4.

perty, and inequalities of property, as the cause of injustice, and the unhappy result of government and artificial institutions. But human society would be in a most unnatural and miserable condition, if it were instituted or reorganized upon the basis of such speculations. The sense of property is graciously implanted in the human breast, for the purpose of rousing us from sloth, and stimulating us to action ; and so long as the right of acquisition is exercised in conformity to the social relations, and the moral obligations which spring from them, it ought to be sacredly protected. The natural and active sense of property pervades the foundations of social improvement. It leads to the culti vation of the earth, the institution of government, the acquisition of the comforts of life, the growth of the useful arts, the spirit of commerce, the productions of taste, the erections of charity, and the display of the benevolent af fections.a

The exclusive right of using and transferring property, follows as a natural consequence, from the perception and

a M. Toullier, in his account of the origin and progress of property, in his Droit Civil Francais, tom. 3. p. 40. insists, that a primitive state of man existed before the establishment of civil society, when all things were common, and temporary occupancy the only title; but he gives no sufficient proof of the fact. The book of Genesis, which he justly regards as the most ancient and venerable of histories, does rot show any such state of the human race. The first man born, was a tiller of the ground, and the second, a keeper of sheep. The earliest account of Noah and his decendants, after the flood, in Genesis. ch. 9, 10 and 13., prove that they were husbandmen, and planted vineyards, built cities, es tablished kingdoms, and abounded in flocks and herds, and gold and silver. I observe, however, with pleasure, that M. Toullier has freely and liberally tollowed Sir William Blackstone, in his elegant dissertation on the vise and progress of property. President Goguet, in his most learned work. De l'origine des lois, des arts, des sciences, et de leurs progres chez les anciens Peuples, 5. 2. ch. 1. art. 1. considers agriculture as flourishing before the dispersion at Babel, though after that event mankind relapsed into the most deplorable barbarity.