INFLUENCE OF AGRICULTURE ON MANNERS. 19 



als to virtue, in establishing a national character, was enjoined 

 on us by the advice, and exemplified in the character, of our 

 Washington. When on tlie occasion of his inauguration to the 

 office of our first chief magistrate, he admonished them to hon- 

 or the men v, ho with their own hands maintain their families, 

 and raise up children who are inured to toil, he doubtless saw 

 in this class of citizens the surest pledges of their welfare, and 

 the permanency of our privileges. This remark of our illustri- 

 ous chief was a salutary reproof to that class of overgrown 

 planters and farmers, who would degrade the concition of the 

 laboring husbandman to that of the slave. In giving lessons to 

 posterity, his exalted policy was not influenced by partial views 

 or personal motives ; by the pri-cie or prejudices of the world. 

 In the experience of a life devoted to the welfare and glory of 

 his country, he found in the employment of agriculture, the 

 best resources of individual happiness and national prosperity. 

 But although there have been characters renovvned for wisdom, 

 for intellectual capacity, and for patriotism, wlio have in every 

 age and country, been disposed to raise the dignity and improve 

 the science of agricultural pursuits, yet, strange as it may ap- 

 pear, in Republican America, to labor in the field is unfashion- 

 able! Cincinnatus was called from the plough to direct the 

 destinies of an empire, that gave laws to the world ; and to the 

 proffers of unbounded wealth, and the splendors of ambition and 

 of power, preferred his cottage and the cultivation of his little 

 farm ; yet among Americans, a large class of our citizens, who 

 would claim the exclusive right to the title of gentlemen, would 

 think it degrading to their dignity to be found, as the deputies 

 of the Roman senate found Cincinnatus.holding the plough and 

 dressed in the mean attire of a laboring husbandman ! In re- 

 publican America, too, many of our sons and daughters would 

 excuse themselves from honest industry, because it is supposed 

 to be unworthy of the capacity improved by science. But A- 

 mericans should not forget what the lessons of history and ex- 

 perience have taught, that degeneracy of morals and manners 

 has invariably originated in that class of citizens who have shun- 

 ned honest industry as degrading ; and that when that class be- 

 comes so numerous as to controul the current of popular opin- 

 ion, the ruin of political happiness and of liberty is inevitable. 

 If then we love our country, and would transmit to our posteri- 

 ty the blessings we enjoy, we should adopt the advice of our 

 greatest political benefactor, honor the men, who with their 

 own hands maintain their families, and thereby render agricul- 

 tural pursuits popular, render them fashionable, and raise them 



