St. Louis County, Mo. is planning to force property owners to purchase a landlord's license to rent out or even allow friends or family to inhabit a privately owned domicile. Not content with collecting fees for "safety" inspections and occupancy permits, the county government is now intent on imposing a landlord's license and extracting yet another fee.  Duplication of current law aside, this new requirement strikes at the heart of a fundamental legal right: the right to ownership of property. Private property is the most basic principle in American jurisprudence.  When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he borrowed from the philosopher John Locke, who asserted three fundamental rights enjoyed by all: life, liberty, and property.  Jefferson, at the urging of Benjamin Franklin, changed the last to "pursuit of happiness" because he did not want to give slaveholders any sort of legal justification should abolition...(Read Full Article)