FOR PROMOTING AGRICULTURE 115 



land-holder in most counties is generally able to carry 

 the elections as he pleases. 



There is no way in which a calm, orderly and intelli- 

 gent exercise and control of political power can be 

 assured to the people but by a distribution among 

 them, as equally as possible, of the property of the 

 country; and I know of no manner in which such a 

 distribution can be permanently and peacefully 

 effected but by keeping the land in small farms, suit- 

 able to be cultivated by their owners. Under such a 

 system, and under no other, the people will exercise 

 their rights with independence. The assumption of a 

 right to dictate will be frowned upon, if attempted; 

 and even the small portion of the population who may 

 be tenants will possess the spirit and freedom of the 

 proprietors. 



But I own that it is not even on political grounds 

 that I think our system of independent rural free- 

 holders is most strongly entitled to preference. Its 

 moral aspects, its connection with the character and 

 the feelings of the yeomanry, give it, after all, its 

 greatest value. The man who stands upon his own 

 soil, who feels that by the law of the land in which he 

 lives, by the law of civilized nations, he is the rightful 

 and exclusive owner of the land which he tills, is, by 

 the constitution of our nature, under a wholesome 

 influence, not easily imbibed from any other source. 

 He feels, other things being equal, more strongly than 

 another, the character of man as the lord of the in- 

 animate world. Of this great and wonderful sphere, 

 which, fashioned by the hand of God, and upheld by 

 his power, is rolling through the heavens, a portion is 

 his — his, from the center to the sky. It is the space on 

 which the generations before him moved in their round 

 of duties; and he feels himself connected, by a visible 

 link, with those who preceded him, as he is also with 

 those who will follow him, and to whom he is to trans- 

 mit a home. Perhaps his farm has come down from 



