Property

[The term 'property'] may have been employed in a more accurate sense to denote the group of rights inhering in the citizen's relation to the physical thing, as the right to possess, use and dispose of it. ... [I]t deals with what lawyers term the individual's 'interest' in the thing in question. The constitutional provision is addressed to every sort of interest the citizen may possess.

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The right and interest which a man has in lands and chattels, to the exclusion of others. 6 Bin. (Pa.) 98; 4 Pet. (U. S.) 511; 17 Johns. (N. Y.) 283; 59 N. Y. 192; 31 Cal. 637; 11 East, 290, 518; 14 East, 370. The right to possess, use, enjoy, and dispose of a thing in any manner not forbidden by law (56 N. Y. 268; 31 Cal. 637); the power of disposition being essential (13 N. Y. 396; 70 Mich. 537). The term is frequently applied to that which is the subject of property and in this sense it includes everything corporeal or incorporeal which is the subject of ownership. 26 Conn. 449; 84 N. Y. 565. It includes choses in action. 23 Minn. 239. Within legal and constitutional provisions for the protection of "property," it has been held to include the right to labor (33 Hun [N. Y.] 374), to practice a profession (90 Pa. St. 477), the right to take an appeal (57 Cal. 464). See "Real Property;" "Chattel Property."

Rightful dominion over external objects; ownership; the unrestricted and exclusive right to a thing; the right to dispose of the substance of a thing in every legal way, to possess it, to use it, and to exclude every one else from interfering with it. Mackeld. Rom. Law, § 265. Property is the highest right a man can have to anything; being used for that right which one has to lands or tenements, goods or chattels, which noway depends on another man's courtesy. Jackson ex dem. Pearson v. Housel, 17 Johns. 281, 283. A right imparting to the owner a power of indefinite usee, capable of being transmitted to universal successors by way of descent, and imparting to the owner the power of disposition, from himself and his successors per universitatem, and from ali other persons who have a spes successionis under any existing concession or disposition, in favor of such person or series of persons as he may choose, with the like capacities and powers as he had himself, and under such conditions as the municipal or particular law allows to be annexed to the dispositions of private persons. Aust. Jur. (Campbell's Ed.) § 1103. The right of property is that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe. It consists in the free use, enjoyment, and disposal of nil a person's acquisitions, without any control or diminution save only by the laws of the land. 1 Bl. Comm. 138; 2 Bl. Comm. 2, 15. The word is also commonly used to denote any external object over which the right of property is exercised. In this sense it is a very wide term, and includes every class of acquisitions which a man can own or have an interest in. See Scranton v. Wheeler, 179 U. S. 141, 21 Sup. Ct 48, 45 L. Ed. 126; Lawrence v. Hennessey, 165 Mo. 659, 65 S. W. 717; Boston & In R. Co.rp. v. Salem & L. R. Ch, 2 Gray (Mass.), 35; National Tel. News Co. v. Western Union Tel. Co., 119 Fed. 294, 56 C. C. A. 198, 60 L. R. A. 805; Hamilton v. Rathbone, 175 U. S. 414, 20 Sup. Ch. 155, 44 L. Ed. 219; Stanton v. Lewis, 26 Conn. 449; Wilson v. Ward Lumber Co.. (C. Ct) 67 Fed, 674.

— Absolute property. In respect to chattels personal property is said to be "absolute" where a man has, solely and exclusively, the right and also the occupation of any movable chattels, so that they cannot be transferred from him, or cease to be his, without his own act or default. 2 Bl Comm. 389. In the law of wills, a bequest or devise "to be the absolute property" of the beneficiary, may pass a title in fee simple. Myers v. Anderson, 1 Strob. Eq. (S. Ct) 344, 47 Am. Dec. 537; Fackler v. Berry, 93 Va. 565, 25 S. E. 887, 57 Am. St. Bep. 819. Or it may mean that the property is to be held free from any limitation or condition or free from any control or disposition on the part of others. Wilson v. White, 133 Ind. 614, 33 N. E. 361, 19 L. R. A. 581; Williams v. Vancleave, 7 T. B. Mon. (Ky.) 388, 393.

— Common property. A term sometimes applied to lands owned by a municipal corporation and held in trust for the common use of the inhabitants. Comp. Laws N. Miex. 1897, § 2184. Also property owned jointly by husband and wife under the community system. See Community.

— Community property. See Community.

— Gan-ancial property. See that title.

— General property. The right and property in a thing enjoyed by the general owner. See OWNER.

— Literary property. See Literary.

— Mixed property. Property which is personal in its essential nafure, but is invested by the law with certain of the characteristics and feafures of real property. Heirlooms, tombstones, monuments in a church, and title-deeds to an estate are of this nature. 2 Bl. Comm. 428; 3 Barn. & Adoi. 174; 4 Bing. 106; Miller v. Worrall, 62 N. J. Eq. 776, 48 Atl. 586, 90 Am. St. Rep. 480; Minot v. Thompson, 106 Mass. 585.

— Personal property. Property of a personal or movable nature, as opposed to property of a local or immovable character, (such as land or houses,) the latter being calied "real property." This term is also applied to the right or interest less than a freehold which a man has in realty. Boyd v. Selma, 96 Ala. 144, 11 South. 393, 16 L. ItA. 729; Adams v. Hackett, 7 Cal. 203; Stief v. Hart, 1 N. Y. 24; Bellows v. Allen. 22 Vt 108; In re Bruckman's Estate, 195 Pa. 363, 45 Atl. 1078; Atlanta v. Chattanooga Foundry & Pipe Co.., (C. C.) 101 Fed. 907. That kind of property which usually consists of things temporary and movable, but includes nil subj'ects of property not of a freehold nafure, nor descendible to the heirs at law. 2 Kent, Comm. 340. Personal property ls divisible into
(1) corporeal personal property, which includes movable and tangible , things, such as animals, ships, furniture, merchandise, etc.; and
(2) incorporeal personal property, which consists of such rights as personal annuities, stocks, shares, patents, and copyrights. Sweet.
—Private property, as protected from being taken for public uses, is such property as belongs absolutely to an individual, and of which he has the exclusive right of disposition; property of a specific, fixed and tangible nature, capable of being had in possession and transmitted to another, such as houses, lands, and chattels. Homochitto River Co.m'rs v. Withers, 29 Miss. 21, 64 Am. Dec. 126; Scranton v. Wheeler, 179 U. S. 141, 21 Sup. Ct. 48, 45 L. Ed. 126.

— Property tax. In English law, this is understood to be an income tax payable in respect to landed property. In America, it is a tax imposed on property, whether real or personui, as distinguished from poll taxes, and taxes on successions, transfers, and occupations, and from license taxes. See Garrett v. St. Louis, 25 Mo. 510, 69 Am. Dec. 475;. In re Swift's Estate, 137 N. Y. 77, 32 N. E. 1096. 18 L. R. A. 709; Rohr v. Gray, 80 Md. 274, 30 Atl. 632.

— Pnblic property. This term is commonly used as a designation of those things which are publici juris, (a. v.,) and therefore considered as being owned by "the public," the entire state or community, and not restricted to the dominion of a private person. It may also apply to any subject of property owned by a state, nation, or municipal corporation as such.

— Qualified property. Property in chattels which is not in its nature permanent, but may at some times subsist and not at other times; such for example, as the property a man may bave in wild animals which he has caught and keeps, and which are his only so long as he retains possession of them. 2 BL Comm. 389.

— Real property. A general term for lands, tenements, and hereditaments ; property which, on the death of the owner intestate, passes to his heir. Real property is either corporeal or incorporeal. See Code N. Y. § 462

— Separate property. The separate property of a married woman is that which she owns in her own right, which is liable only for her own debts, and which she can incumber and dispose of at her own will

— Special property. Property of a qualified, temporary, or limited nature ; as distinguished from absolute, general, or unconditional property. Such is the property of a bailee in the article bailed, of a sheriff in goods temporarily in his hands under a levy, of the finder of lost goods while looking for the owner, of a person in wild animals which he has caught. Stief v. Hart, 1 N. Y. 24; Moulton v. Witherell, 52 Me. 242; Eisendrath v. Knaiier, 64 111. 402; Phelps v. People, 72 N. Y. 357.

That which is proper or peculiar to one own; that to which one has an unrestricted the right by virtue of which a thing belongs own; ownership; dominion. Considered as property is every kind of valuable thing mixed.

In old English law. The ownership of chattels, to estate, which denoted an interest in lands.

is the right and interest which a man has in lands and chattels. 6 Binn. 98; 17 Johns. 283; 14 East, 370; 11 East, 290, 518. It is divided into real property, (q- Vv.) and personal property, (q- v.) Ali things are not the subject of property; the sea, the air and the like cannot be appropriated; every one may enjoy thei, but he has no exclusive right in them. When things are fulour own, or when all others are -e Xcluded from meddling with them, or from interfering about them; it is plain that no person besides the proprietor, who has this exclusive right, can have any claim either to use them, or to hinder him from disposing of them as he pleases; so that property, considered as an exclusive right to things, contains not only a right to use those things, but a right to dispose of them, either by exchanging them for other things, or by giving them away to any other person, without any consideration, or even throwing them away. Rutherf. Inst. 20; Domat, liv. prél. tit. 8; Poth. Des Choses; 18 Vin. Ab. 63; 7 Com. Dig. 175; Com. Dig. Biens.