12 [Senate 



are important therefore, not merely to the improvementj but to the 

 prosperity of agriculture. 



Agriculture can never flourish where its rewards are precarious, or 

 inferior in value to those obtained in other departments of industry. 

 Perpetual care is necessary to diminish the burthens to which it may 

 be subjected. Hence the necessity of an economical conduct of pub- 

 lic affairs-— of improving those inland communications which serve 

 for the conveyance of agricultural productions to places of exchange 

 and consumption, and of such commercial regulations as secure advan- 

 tageous markets, either at home or abroad. But these considerations 

 are so familiar that they need not be dwelt upon, notwithstanding 

 their acknowledged importance. 



The preservation of equality among the people in regard to con- 

 stitutional and legal rights, and perpetual adherence to the policy 

 which by laws regulating descents, devises and trusts, prevents the 

 undue accumulation of estates, are indispensable to agricultural pros- 

 perity. It is this policy, co-operating with the natural advantages of 

 our position, which has made the agricultural class here a communi- 

 ty of freeholders, in contrast with the systems of other countries, un- 

 der which lands are cultivated by tenants, the rewards of whose la- 

 bor pass to the benefit of landlords. 



Not only was the " primal curse" of labor universal, but acquies- 

 cence in it was wisely made a condition of health, happiness, wisdom 

 and virtue. This condition, however, implies that equal rewards are 

 allowed to mankind, while equal labor is exacted from them. What- 

 ever institution, then, on any pretext, relieves any portion of a com- 

 munity of the necessity of labor, or withholds its incentives or ex- 

 cludes them from equal competition for its rewards, not only is une- 

 qual and unjust, but by diminishing the whole amount of social la- 

 bor, increases the burthens of those on whom the subsistence of so- 

 ciety depends. We are all accustomed to recognize this important 

 truth in the operation of domestic servitude. But every form of une- 

 qual legislation, every custom and every prejudice which causes any 

 mass or any portion of a mass to abate their efforts to secure inde- 

 pendence and wealth, operates in the same manner, although to a less 

 extent. 



While the patrons of agriculture will keep steadily in view these 

 principles, their most strenuous efforts must be exerted for the difTu- 

 sion of knowledge. To knowledge we are indebted for whatever of 



