FARMERS' REGISTER. 



715 



(bid better, it is not enabled to supply a nation 

 with bread? An acre of wheat in Enjiland pro- 

 duces to the fanner 261. 5s. sierfinfr; here in some 

 states \l. 10s. in others 31. eterhn<?. And here 

 the profiis of money-jobbino;, or capitalists, are as 

 great as in England. If agriculture with such 

 products and prices, is so bad a business there, 

 compared with credit-jobbing, as to be unable to 

 raise bread for tiie nation, what fate do our pro- 

 ducts and prices pronounce upon it here? 



A material diH'erence between the landed inte 

 rest of ihe United Stales and of England, is the 

 funeral dirge of the I'ormer. There it is distinct 

 ("rom agriculture, and associated with the aristo- 

 cracy of capitalists. Here it is united with agri- 

 culture, and fated without equivalent to feed that 

 aristocracy. There it is a landlord, here it is a 

 tenant. There its rents supply it with capital to 

 embark in the legal money sponges lor absorbing 

 the earnings of labor ; here it is labor itself whose 

 earnings tliese money sponges absorb. There it 

 is Jed wiih Ihe most delicious morsels of royal 

 patronage aHorded by a system for pilfering, not 

 landlords, but labor: here, but a few of these 

 morsels lall to its share, and these have been pre- 

 viously carved from its own carcass. There the 

 interest of idleness legislates, and it legislates in 

 favor of idleness. Here the interest of labor 

 legislates, and it also legislates in favor ol' idle- 

 ness. 



The political evils which bear upon agriculture, 

 are a providence which will unalterably determine 

 its fate, unless they are removed, and therefore the 

 only remedy which can avert this fate is to re- 

 move them. I shall quote Sirickland but once 

 more, because his veracity is insufferable. I have 

 selected hitherto his softest passages, for he as- 

 serts, that our soil is nearly a caput mortuum ; 

 that our landed property is no longer an object of 

 profit or pleasure: — that lew good houses are 

 building in the country, or improvements of any 

 kind taking place ; and that the opulent are quit- 

 ting it for the towns. But when he says, page 55, 

 "the mass of those we should call planters or 

 farmers, are ignorant, uneducated, poor and indo- 

 lent," his veracity becomes insolent. Has Mr. 

 Strickland forgotten, that we agriculturists had 

 the sagacity to discover, that the English system 

 of creating an order of capitalists, was levelled di- 

 rectly at our prosperity, and the magnanimous 

 perseverance to get rid of its authors? Let him 

 remember this achievement, and llirget what has 

 become of the system itself ; and then he will cer- 

 tainly retract his severe censure upon our under- 

 standings and perseverance. 



I would further ask Mr. Strickland, whether it 

 is a very uncommon thing, even in his enlightened 

 England, for the people to mistake the shadow for 

 the substance, or to follow their passions in pursuit 

 of the oppressor, rather than their reason in pur- 

 suit of the oppression. In short, are not the pages 

 of history replete with instances of destroying the 

 tyrant and retaining the tyranny? And why 

 should we agriculturists be called ignorant and in- 

 dolent, when we are only gulled, just as mankind 

 in general, the enlightened citizens of Europe, 

 and his own liillow subjects are gulled? Why 

 should the good sense and constancy of regarding 

 the principle rather than the agent, be exclusively 

 expected of us? 

 It is, however, certainly true, that nothing can,, 



flourish under oppression. Neither agriculture nor 

 civil liberty can fxist in declamations, or be toast- 

 ed in'o prosperity. Our struggles, to resuscitate 

 dying agriculture, must, like those of Sisyphus, 

 yield to a stronger depressing power. The plough 

 can have very little success, until the laws are al- 

 tered which obstruct it. Societies for improving 

 the breed of sheep, or the form of ploughs, will be 

 as likely to produce a good system of agriculture, 

 under depressing laws, as societies for improving 

 the English form of government under their de- 

 pressing system of corruption. A good pen may 

 produce a very bad treatise. 



Agricultural societies, to take a chance for suc- 

 cess, must begin with efforts to elect into the ge- 

 neral and state legislatures, a genuine agricultural 

 interest, uncorrupted by stock-jobbing, by a view 

 of office, or by odious personal vices ; taking care 

 to combine talents with this genuine character. 

 Wise agricultural elections, constitute the only 

 chance for abrogating a policy, which is the ruin 

 of asricultural prosperity. 



The bounties, frauds and useless expenses, 

 which strengthen the government and corrupt 

 the nation, and are drawing a vnst annual capital 

 (i-om agriculture, would then be applied to the in- 

 vigoration of the militia. Such a measure would 

 return to manufijctures and agriculture their own 

 capital, and improve both the national soil and the 

 national spirit. The nation would exchange inef- 

 fectual armaments for an irresistible ardor; an im- 

 poverishing, for an improving soil ; disrespect for 

 itself and its native haunts, for national pride and 

 love of country ; and a school of slock-jobbera 

 and contractors, lor a school of patriots. But agri- 

 culture and the militia receive abundance of praise 

 and an abundance of oppression and neglect, nor 

 can a mode of encouraging either by law be dis- 

 covered, whilst no difRculiy is felt in rearing up 

 mercenary armies, and more mercenary capitalists, 

 lor the same reason. It is impossible by law to 

 encourage agriculture and the mi'ilia, and also 

 capitalists and standing armies. 



The remedy of construing the constitution ho- 

 nestly is a simple one. It certainly intended to 

 bestow as little power to tax agriculture, in order 

 to raise a bounty for manufactures and credit cor- 

 porations, as it does to tax manufactures, in order 

 to raise a bounty for agriculture. Let the imposts 

 be regulated by their constitutional intention, and 

 agriculture will cease to be oppressed by bounties 

 bestowed by statesmen out ol her purse, to ad- 

 vance their own designs. The words and the spi- 

 rit of the constitution are so entirely adverse to the 

 idea of enablinir congress to exercise a partiality 

 equivalent to the ruin or opulence of states, rely- 

 ing distinctly upon agricultural or manufaclural 

 staples of commerce, that the unconstitutionality 

 of the power ought to render the policy of its ex- 

 ercise an unnecessary inquiry. It is further unne- 

 cessary, because however favorable it may be to 

 capitalists, it is subjugation even to manulacturers, 

 and must impoverish a vast majority of the p^-ople 

 in every state of the union to enrich a lew, neitficr 

 the necessity or advantage of which is suggested 

 by the consiituiion. 



It is easy to withhold future charter- for esta- 

 blishing corporations to fleece agriculture and ma- 

 nufactures ; it will t-e harder to repeal those alrea- 

 dy granted. Yet there is no point upon which 

 the liberty of the nation more ccriainiy depends, 



