PENOBSCOT AND AROOSTOOK UNION SOCIETY. 183 



sons are there. No other occupation is so exempt from panic, 

 or hard times. Witness the late financial storm, which swept 

 over the country like a wild tornado, prostrating thousands, sup- 

 posed to be independent, while its effect upon the farmer, was like 

 the cold and driving winter's storm to the inmates of the warm and 

 comfortable house — it only served to increase their happiness. 

 Yet with all the advantages it possesses over other pursuits, how 

 many farmers' sons in the country leave their quiet and happy 

 homes to seek employment in the city — away from the friendly 

 counsel of father, mother, brothers and sisters, surrounded with 

 temptation on every hand, like a ship upon an unknown ocean, 

 without compass, uncertain into what port or upon what rocks, it 

 will be ultimately driven. As cause and effect are inseparably 

 connected, let us inquire what is the cause ? Why is it, when the 

 farmers constitute four-fifths of the population and possess an equal 

 amount of wealth, that they exercise so little influence in the coun- 

 sels of the nation ? Is it not because they have not the scientific 

 attainments of the learned professions, that they do not attain a 

 position to which they are entitled ? How is it in our halls of leg- 

 islation ? When have we had a legislature over which a few 

 scheming lawyers did not exercise an almost entire control ? But 

 few farmers hold oflBce of trust or profit. From the eighty thou- 

 sand farmers in this State, not even a candidate for Governor, has 

 ever been selected. All the Presidents of these United States have 

 been lawyers except the first ; he was a farmer and we have never 

 had his equal. While many thousands of the farmers' money is 

 freely given to endow seminaries to educate the learned professions, 

 agriculture, and that only, is neglected. The friends of agricultu- 

 ral education, saw with hopeful anxiety, a bill introduced at the 

 last Congress to wrest from the grasp of greedy speculators a suflS- 

 cient quantity of the public lands, to endow a college in each State 

 in the Union, for the promotion of agricultural and mechanical 

 knowledge. That bill, after passing both branches of Congress, 

 was struck down by that arbitrary, anti-democratic power, the 

 President's veto ; thus inflicting upon the great productive ener- 

 gies of the nation, the deepest wound which his high position, as 

 executive of this nation, could possibly enable him to do. It may 

 be asked, why was it done ? The answer is, in nearly half the 

 States in this Union, all learning is denied the laborer ; and for 

 them to build a college to educate the farmer would be like putting 

 a blacksmith's shop in a powder mill. In other enlightened nations 



