SOLON ROBINSON, 1841 231 



of one of their own class. It is not so with the rich: 

 he is never known to favor the cause of a poor man 

 against the rich; and on this circumstance principally 

 depends the safety of the first class, in the attitude which 

 they have assumed, relative to the working classes, and 

 which there is not, nor is there likely to be, sufficient 

 concert and unity among the working classes to remove 

 or overthrow." 



Now, is there not "straight forward common sense" 

 in that? But are you willing to acknowledge that "farm- 

 ers and mechanics are the lower class" of society? 



Are you "afraid to offend the rich and the fashion- 

 able?" Who made them rich and fashionable? Who 

 gave them the right to assume to themselves all the 

 honors, profits, and magnificent enjoyments of "fashion- 

 able life?" 



Does the God of nature make envious distinctions, and 

 decree that he who cultivates the earth shall bow himself 

 a slave to him who reapeth where he soweth not? Is it 

 wrong that the cultivators are compelled by the decrees 

 of "fashionable society," as now constituted, to stand 

 aloof, nor dare to show their faces in the wedding cham- 

 ber, because their backs are not covered with a proper 

 wedding garment? 



If what the present state of society called the "first 

 class," are so entirely dependant on the farmers and 

 mechanics, with what propriety can they set themselves 

 up so much above them, and exclude them from their 

 society ? 



Far, far be it from me to endeavor to set one class of 

 society in array against another. Such is not my present 

 object; but it is to call your attention to an existing state 

 of things, and then ask you if we have not the power to 

 apply the remedy. 



And the remedy that I would apply, is not to pull 

 down that class of society to our level, but to build ours 

 up. Let us by all possible means endeavor to elevate the 

 character and standing of every cultivator of American 



17—60109 



