ANNUAL ADDRESS. 117 



luxuries of the few, and the scanty pittance of the many. The 

 fruitful ground, in whose mysterious laboratory are commingled 

 the elements from which are evolved the germs of vegeta- 

 ble life, the great primal and common heritage of the human 

 race, intended to be enjoyed, alike, for substance and abode, by 

 all whose labors contribute to the exacted instrumentalities of 

 seed-time and harvest, was vested, by the laws of feudal tenure, 

 in a few manorial sovereigns and titled dignitaries, while the 

 masses of men, under the ban of villeinage and serfdom, passed 

 like any other fixtures with the title of the soil. Then society 

 embraced only two classes, either civil or social — the landlord 

 and the tenant; the owner of the freehold of inheritance, and 

 the holder of a limited and temporary estate : to be enjoyed 

 only upon condition of rent and service ; the lord and his serf ; 

 the patrician and the plebean ; the aristocracy and the common- 

 alty. The first class, of necessity, were the few, and they en- 

 joyed all the highest privileges and prerogatives under the 

 crown, and to them was committed the immediate government 

 and control of the other class, whose civil rights, both of person 

 and property, were limited and undefined, and mostly dependent 

 upon the pleasure of their titled, insolent, and tyrannical supe- 

 riors. 



From th's coudition of society, in the more civilized portions 

 of the old world, anterior to the discovery and settlement of the 

 Western Continent, may be deduced one of the most important 

 and suggestive lessons of history, to wit: 



That the distinctions of civil rank, and the widely separated 

 orders of noble and ignoble blood, under all the forms of des- 

 potic government, had their origin in the arbitrary and unequal 

 bestowment of large tracts of land, and portions of country by 

 royal grant, upon the few favored military chieftains, who may 

 have signalized themselves in war or intrigues, in support of the 

 crown. 



The common soldiers, the rank and file, the large bands of 

 retainers, in times of peace became the dependent tillers of the 

 soil thus portioned among their chiefs, and were compelled, in 

 order to acquire subsistence, to continue in the same relative 



