State Agricultural Society. 121 



enings is of doubtful cliaraoter, tin«l for the further reason of my 

 peculiar relation to the (luestions involved. 



I conceive, however, that the importance of the topic and the occa- 

 sion, will be deemed a sufficient excuse. 



One of the greatest dangers which this State labors under is the 

 ignorance which exists among what are called the richer or better 

 educated classes as to the nature and extent of rej^ublican ideas and 

 institutions. At least we should think .so if we believed all that we 

 are told l>y these wise men who come from the east to instruct us. 

 The old Magi who saw the star in the east, and followed it, did so to 

 tender their M^orship at the shrine they souglit. Our Magi retjuire 

 alike tithes, worship and obedience. It seems to me that tho.se of 

 such august claims, of such profound contempt for our great historic 

 names, and long, deei)-seated convictions, should touch our opinions 

 and even our ))rejudices tenderly and respectfully. Paul found on 

 liar's Hill an altar to the unknown God. He did not overturn the 

 altar nor treat the superstition with contempt. He followed the 

 heathens' line of thought, and guided and purified their worship by 

 declaring that God to them. What is the tone and language of the 

 new Apostles to the Gentiles? Our government, in its necessity, 

 sold its bonds with the condition that they should be exempt 

 from taxation. The purchaser paid the taxes in the original 

 price. To fully express what is deemed proper abhorrence at 

 this transaction, there are forms of expression imported into 

 public displays quite new to us. Our language seems to have been 

 enriched by new descriptive applications. A very large majority 

 of these bonds are held in this country, and vast sums in the aggre- 

 gate are held by those who may be denominated as helpless and 

 timid classes. The funds belonging to estates are largely of this 

 kind, the widows and orphans, factory and servant girls, schoolmis- 

 tresses, the little daughters of our friends and our blood. I do not 

 recognize the justice of denominating this class of persons "lech- 

 erous bondholders." The men who, starting from the soil, have 

 built up the State, who have opened up commerce and created indus- 

 try, who have filled the mountains and the ])lains with agriculture 

 and beautiful homes; whose children — the healthy boys and the 

 beautiful girls, dropped like the snowflake from the pure sky — it 

 seems to me are hardly with propriety called hell-born and hell- 

 bound thieves and blood-suckers. T do not suppose that thirty 

 thousand voters in this State entertain this opinion; but is it not a 

 serious thing when they act with those who do, and when the chief 

 city of the State, whose very life depends upon its commerce, and its 

 justice and domestic trancjuility, occupies its present position? Con- 

 scious of our own mistakes and our sins, we may well appeal from 

 these atrocious judgments to the good sense of our fellow-citizens in 

 their saner moments. Above all there is one overmastering conso- 

 lation. These expressions and sentiments arc not tJie oidyrowiJi of 

 republican institutions. Those of us whose ancestors fought upon the 

 right side one hundred years ago, who left their exhausted bodies in 

 the snowdrift at Valley Forge, or fattened with their blood every 

 battlefield from Maine to Georgia, and who have ourselves in turn 

 defended labor all our lives — have assisted to free it in its most 

 degraded and oi)i)ressed condition, may well hope to persevere to the 

 end. We will tender the poor our .sympathv and aid in all his etlbrts 

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