Private Property: As Sacred as the Laws of God by Arthur Thompson

What does it mean to “own” something if government can tax it away, fence it off, or dictate its use? Property Rights: As Sacred as the Laws of God presses that question straight to the root. Arthur R. Thompson shows how Americans shifted from genuine ownership to conditional permission — land and homes subject to zoning boards, regulatory agencies, and tax collectors. Behind the shift lies a deeper contest: is property a right granted by God or a license from the state?

Thompson starts with the founding documents and tests the present against them. He clarifies the Founders’ sense of the “pursuit of happiness” as the freedom to acquire and keep property — land, tools, savings, and household means. He shows what the Commandments require: do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not covet. Those moral guards once shaped law. He then tracks state growth in two places — expanding public ownership and rulebooks that decide what a deed holder may do. Because ideas have owners, he defends the mind’s work — conscience and speech — and the instruments that guard both, including arms.

He then follows the transfer from private control to administrative permission. Thompson identifies ideologies that deny God-given rights and the networks that carry them — from international entanglements and compacts to domestic agencies that treat citizens as tenants of the state. Rhetoric about “democracy” is often used to override local consent. Bureaucratic labels convert use into a privilege. Yet he refuses fatalism and points to constitutional remedies still within reach. Across chapters he links doctrine to cases so readers see how abstractions land on a deed.

This book serves homeowners facing permits and teachers who cover the Founders. It also helps small farmers and builders wrestling with designations, and citizens who track county boards. Property Rights: As Sacred as the Laws of God matters now because the pressure is practical — tax bills, zoning letters, permit denials, and notices with deadlines. Read with a pencil; share a chapter with neighbors or officials; then act with an eye to posterity. (2022ed, 122pp)