56 [Senate 



tude, as under a false and despotic system it was, and in some parts: 

 of the globe still is. In this, we stand upon ground which the an- 

 cients never attained. It is the great achievement of modern times. 

 The rights of man and the dignity of labor are vindicated; the one 

 follows from the other. Agricultural improvement then rests upon a 

 foundation on which it never stood before. It is sustained by free in- 

 stitutions; it is the result of laws, wise, because liberal. The enfran- 

 chisement of the many, the elevation of the masses, must go hand in 

 hand with the intelligent, industrious, and prosperous cultivation of 

 the earth. 



If agriculture owes much to the benign influence of free institu- 

 tutions, liberty owes not less to agriculture. Where do w^e look for 

 the calm discretion, the disinterested patriotism, which must sustain a 

 representative government, but to the great community of cultivators 

 of the earth ? Even those most skeptical as to the fitness of man for 

 self-government, admit that if the experiment ever succeeds, it will 

 be in a nation of farmers. The experiment, thank Heaven, has suc- 

 ceeded; it has succeeded in a nation of farmers; and while we must 

 not be guilty of the illiberality of doubting that the great manufactu- 

 ring nations of other continents may be fitted to administer the high 

 duties of freemen, it becomes us to cherish a profession which, more 

 than any other, prepares man to receive the highest blessing of his 

 race in this world — a free government. We must cherish it by in- 

 dustry, by virtue, by intellectual cultivation; by connecting it with 

 science and the arts, and with every thing which can elevate and 

 adorn it. If we do our duty by ourselves and our children, agricul- 

 ture will never again, it is to be hoped, know the dark ages in which 

 for so many centuries, it slept with liberty and learning. Let us do 

 our duty in the responsible station and happy era in which Providence 

 has cast our destiny, and I trust the day is far, far distant, when we 

 shall cease to be a nation of farmers and a nation of freemen. 



