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Wow! That's quite an opening salvo! A good choice of essay with which to begin the study.

But Bryan grates on the modern ear with his statement that a successful republic would also require that property be fairly equally distributed. How would Bryan see today’s America with its disparities of wealth, some created by merit and others by government?

I read Bryan as saying, not that property ought to be RE-distributed, but merely that a fairly equal distribution of property is a necessary precondition for free government to flourish. In other words, upon seeing vast disparities of property in a nation, he would not be optimistic that a republic could thrive there.

Does this justify the abridgment of property rights? Well, "yes" in certain circumstance; but "no" in most. In ours, I think not, since the acquisition of property is a freedom open to all citizens. (The moneyed powers in America certainly seem to have influenced the laws in their favor, however; so that "no" may in time be changed to a "yes".)

Property equates to a stake in the community. In this regard, the more widespread its possession, the better. (I'm reminded of the Chesterton-Belloc idea of "distributism", based philosophically on the Israelitish distribution of land in Canaan.) Unfortunately, our recent experiment with property gifts (i.e. unwarranted mortgages) was an abysmal failure, and reminds us that some people are rather limited in what they can contribute to our nation, and as such ought to be excluded from our political affairs. As has been well-noted, there are, after all, limits to democracy.

If virtue and a wide distribution of property are conditions essential to a free republic, then free republics depend entirely on the people, since virtue cannot be coerced, and confiscation of property in the name of "freedom" is an oxymoron. A form of government can aid or hinder us, of course; but our freedom depends ultimately upon us.

The America that existed in 1787 had not yet seen much in the way of industrialization. Of all the Framers, only Hamilton saw what was coming, and he eagerly embraced that future in the "Report on Manufactures" he sent to President Washington when he served at Treasury. That future led to disparities in wealh of such degree that President Jackson warned in 1836 that corporations were a threat to the Republic and needed strict regulation by the states.

At Bryan's time, wealth came from the land. The large landowners of New York probably constituted his idea of a great disparity of wealth. The patroon families of that state held a huge amount of the land and had armies of tenant farmers to run them. Lacking land of their own, these tenant farmers were not permitted to vote. There were few smallholdings in the Hudson Valley.

I suspect this is what Bryan had in mind when he wrote that sentence.

>But Bryan grates on the modern ear with his statement that a successful republic would also require that property be fairly equally distributed. How would Bryan see today’s America with its disparities of wealth, some created by merit and others by government?

I read Bryan as saying, not that property ought to be RE-distributed, but merely that a fairly equal distribution of property is a necessary precondition for free government to flourish. In other words, upon seeing vast disparities of property in a nation, he would not be optimistic that a republic could thrive there.

I agree that was the intention of Bryans statement about wealth in relation to a new form of government. I'm assuming that real property (land) was what he was considering.

One way to become wealthy at that time was to acquire land at low cost and immediately cut the timber off to be burnt on site. The ashes from the burnt hardwoods (potash) could be sold at a price that would cover the cost of the land and also the labor involved. The land could then be used for farming or pasture. Even the most destitute man, if he was industrious enough and physically able, could become a landowner in a fairly short period of time.