From Property in Rights to Power Over Rights – Madison’s Warning Echoes Today

By: William Paatalo – Private Investigator / Expert Witness – bill.bpia@gmail.com

In 1792, James Madison penned one of the most timeless essays in the early American republic: “Property,” published in the National Gazette. His argument was clear and visionary. Property, he argued, was not merely land or merchandise. It extended to “every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right”—including opinions, conscience, labor, and the free use of one’s faculties. In short, every individual has a “property in his rights.”

Fast forward over two centuries, and that principle is being systematically eroded. Madison’s concern that government could degrade into an institution that favors arbitrary power over equal rights is more relevant than ever—especially in the realm of property finance and foreclosure.

Today, we face a legal and financial regime where the question is no longer, “Who owns the loan?” or “What rights does the borrower retain?” Instead, servicers like Nationstar (now Mr. Cooper) boldly testify that ownership is irrelevant. The borrower need not know who owns the debt or whether the chain of title was ever properly maintained. As one corporate representative said under oath, “It is not to determine who owns. It is who has the power.”

This statement would be shocking in a constitutional democracy—but it is routine in foreclosure courts today. The modern foreclosure machine is built not on transparency or legal chain of custody, but on presumed power. Notes are derecognized under ASC 860, destroyed or digitized, traded in repo markets, and passed off to servicers who claim enforcement rights without lawful ownership. Borrowers are denied their most basic informational rights, and when they resist or demand verification, they are met with retaliation.

Madison’s 1792 essay warned that where “an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected.” We are living in that excess. And the property at stake is more than a home—it is the property each citizen holds in their legal rights, in their economic freedom, in the very idea that justice must be rooted in evidence, not assumption.

The gap between Madison’s ideal and our modern reality could not be clearer. Yet therein lies hope. The path forward is not to abandon the system but to remind it—and ourselves—what it was built to protect.

Property in rights. Not power over rights.