DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES. 95 



Do we not owe it to ourselves as well as to those who are to come 

 after us, to devise reasonable safeguards for the agricultural inter 

 ests of our State, and to say with the united voices of forty thou 

 sand farmers, and the forty thousand more whose best interests are 

 inseparable from the farming interest, that they shall not, with our 

 consent, be enslaved. 



What avail all your boasted advantages? &quot;What, though your 

 soil is unsurpassed and you amaze the world with its productive 

 ness; what, though your valleys and plains have been made ready 

 for use by nature s lavish kindness, and give to labor larger returns 

 than any other known country; what, though your landscape charms, 

 your climate invigorates, and your cloudless skies give you a har 

 vest season from June to October; of what advantage, I say, are all 

 these, if you are to groan under oppression, lose the fruits of your 

 labor and the control of your destiny ? 



Of course, farmers whose interests are indissolubly linked with 

 the general welfare should not and do not propose to make an inva 

 sion on vested rights or retard legitimate industries of any kind 

 whatsoever. They simply ask for protection. 



I can say for myself, and I speak the sentiments of the farmers 

 generally, as I believe, in the following declarations: 



That agriculture is and ever must be the fundamental industry of 

 this and all other prosperous States, and more than any other indus 

 try creates and sustains commerce and manufactures, and furnishes 

 the material to feed and clothe the world. 



That transportation is indispensable to agricultural prosperity, 

 and that it is our duty, as farmers, to promote the construction of 

 roads, canals, vessels and all modes of conveyance calculated to 

 facilitate the movement of agricultural products. 



That the charges on lines of transportation should be regulated 

 by law, and not left to unlimited monopoly; and if such regulations 

 be found impracticable on existing lines, they should be made ap 

 plicable to all future lines, until reciprocal relations shall be fully 

 established between the producer and the common carrier. 



We declare that farmers and all others should be equal before 

 the law; that all laws should be enacted without bias, and executed 

 without partiality; and to this end we declare that neither farmers 

 or others ought to furnish legislative, executive, or judicial officers 

 with free passes, or in any manner do anything calculated to im 

 properly influence them in the discharge of their public trust; and 

 that no officer, or candidate for office, ought to accept, nor shall any 

 officer, with our consent, be hereafter elected who will accept of a 

 free pass, or other gift. 



We declare that all laws taxing growing crops, mortgages, or 

 book accounts, or other mere memoranda calculated to enhance in 

 terest on money, which farmers and others in need have to borrow, 

 are wrong in principle and oppressive in operation, and ought to 

 be repealed. 



We declare that it is the duty of Congress to so regulate com 

 merce among all the States of this Union that agriculture shall not 

 be oppressed by unnecessary burdens. 



We declare that these vital questions are above all party issues. 



