[RightWhale]

What ever happened to basing decisions on THE CONSTITUTION??

Property rights are not given explicitly in the Constitution. They are implicit only in the 4th and 5th Amendments. Property rights come through the State through the legal system.

[Dead Corpse]

"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God ... (then) anarchy and tyranny commence. Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist.." -- John Adams

At one point in time, the Founders thought private property ownership so important that only landed men could vote.

Still think they didn't mean exactly what they said? All Rights are "private" property Rights.

[AntiGuv]

The Fifth Amendment clearly and explicitly recognizes private property and the boundaries within which government may encroach upon that.

[MamaTexan]

Property rights come through the State through the legal system.

No, property rights come from our God given right to KEEP what we EARN!

It's why life liberty and property are NOT in the Constitution, which is a POSITIVE law contract, but in the Declaration of Independence!

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Men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,-'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;' and to 'secure,' not grant or create, these rights, governments are instituted. That property which a man has honestly acquired he retains full control of, subject to these limitations:

First, that he shall not use it to his neighbor's injury, and that does not mean that he must use it for his neighbor's benefit;

second, that if the devotes it to a public use, he gives to the public a right to control that use;

and third, that whenever the public needs require, the public may take it upon payment of due compensation.
BUDD v. PEOPLE OF STATE OF NEW YORK, 143 U.S. 517 (1892) _________________________________________________________________

That these are our grievances which we have thus laid before his majesty, with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free people claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.
Thomas Jefferson, Rights of British America, 1774

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Natural rights [are] the objects for the protection of which society is formed and municipal laws established.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Monroe, 1791

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[TKDietz]

"Property rights are not given explicitly in the Constitution. They are implicit only in the 4th and 5th Amendments."

5th Amendment:

"...nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

That sounds pretty darned explicit to me.

[sauropod]

Property rights come through the State through the legal system.

Really?

Whatever happened to Jefferson's declaration for Americans about the "pursuit of life, liberty and property?"