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F A K JVl E K S ' REGISTER 



than the subversion of the doctrine of a judicial 

 power, (o turn laws into contracts, and render 

 them irrepealabie, under a line of" tlie constitution, 

 which uses the iderjlical words "law and con- 

 tract" in different senses. To try this doctrine, by 

 uhich charters, once the vehicles of liberty, are 

 ingeniously converted into vehicles of slavery, 1 

 wit^h that congress would grant to a corporation 

 ol' capitalists the exclusive privilege of furnishing 

 the country with nianulactures Jbr one thousand 

 years, vviih a stipulation for protecting duties, 

 equal to an exclusion, (or the same 'erm. Ii 

 would bring this momentous question to a (air de- 

 cision whilst we have power to consider ir. 



'J'he last, though not the least, political oppres- 

 sion upon agriculture, which 1 have selected, for 

 this short consideration of its political stale, is our 

 treasury system, copied from the English, and ot 

 course liable to the same abuses. It is so utterly 

 destitute of any security for the honest application 

 of public money, that no congress, committee of 

 congress, or member of congress, has ever exa- 

 mined the accounts of a single year, or been able 

 to form a conjecture on the subject. The detail ol 

 checks is a detail of dependence and subserviency, 

 and a tissue of inefieclual formality. The money 

 passes in gross sums into the hands of a host ol 

 sub-treasurers. The system fell at once into the 

 grossest of those corruptions which contaminate 

 the British policy, that of losing sight of money 

 after iis appropriation, and considering it as con- 

 stitutionally gone, however small a proportion of 

 its object was obtained : so that an army upon pa- 

 per, costs the same sum as an army in the field. 

 This subject is however too long and intricate to 

 follow away from that 1 am pursuing. This abuse 

 in both countries endeavors to shrink from i)ub- 

 lic view, behind screens called sinking funds, 

 lor applying a surplus of revenue to the payment 

 of debt. These screens cover pecuniary abuses 

 against those annual critical examinations of the 

 items of public expenditure, so wholesomely prac- 

 tised by stale legislatures. Such annual exami- 

 nations by congress would probably leave with 

 agriculture a considerable amount of capital an- 

 nually taken from her, to eniich knaves; for no 

 other description of men can get a shilling from 

 (he omission of an annual examination of the pub- 

 lic accounts. From the loan of money in llol- 

 iand to put the United States' bank in motion, to 

 this day, every minority has testified to great pe- 

 cuniary abuses ; and none, when converted into a 

 majority, has ever provided a remedy against them. 

 The only remedy in this case, as in others, is 

 to elect into congress a genuine agricultural in- 

 terest, uncorrupted by a mixture with stock job- 

 bing, by a view of office, or by odious personal 

 vices, and combined with good talents. 



"J^he political causes which oppress agriculture 

 have been considered, before the domesiic haliiis 

 which vitiate it, to guard against the error ot an 

 opinion, that the latter may be removed, whilst 

 the Ibrmer continue. So long as the laws make 

 it more profitable to invest cai)ital in speculations 

 without labor, than in agriculture with labor ; and 

 60 long as the liberiy ol pursuing one's own in- 

 terest exists; the two strongest human propensities-, 

 a love of wealth, and a love of ease, will render 

 it impossible. The reason why agiiculiiire is 

 liettcr managed in Europe than in' the United 

 States, is; the coercion of necctsity upon liic labo- 



rers to improve it to the utmost. The landed in- 

 terest there and here, as was before observed, en- 

 tirely ditler. The tenants or agriculturists are a 

 species of slaves, goaded into ingenuity, labor and 

 economy, without possessing any political import- 

 ance, or the least share in the government. They 

 are lashed into a good system of agriculture in the 

 same way that good discipline is produced in an 

 army ; and this good system of agriculture is also 

 tor the benefit of their landlords and legislators, 

 just as the good discipline of an army is lor the 

 benefit of its generals and other officers. It is 

 more out of the power of English tenants or 

 agriculturists, to become landlords, capitalists or 

 manufacturers, or to escape the coercion which 

 forces them to stretch the mind and the muscles 

 after improvement, than of soldiers to desert. 

 However they may move from place to place, 

 like horses transferred from owner to owner, they 

 are doomed to the same fate. Oppression, which 

 causes agricultural improvement in England, will 

 prevent it in the United States, because it cannot 

 seize and hold fast the agriculturist. There, he 

 can only soften oppression by superior skill and 

 industry. Here, he can flee from it into a vpilder- 

 ness, or into a charter, and gain greater profit with 

 less labor. We copy the English frauds upon the 

 agriculturists, forgetting that the English power 

 over him does not exist here. That instead of 

 being able to lash him into excellence for the bene- 

 fit of others, we can only solicit him by his own 

 interest and happiness ; and that this solicitation 

 is an insult upon his understanding, if it honestly 

 tells him, that government will establish the po- 

 licy of scattering bounties at his expense, and of 

 bestowing more profit and ease upon paper ca- 

 pital or fraudulent credit, than he can derive from 

 solid land and honest labor. Being free, if he is 

 wise, he will prefer a share of profit and ease, to 

 a share of loss and toil. The cunning declaimera 

 in praise of those who choose the yoke of evils, 

 for the sake of getting the yoke of blessings for 

 themselves, only deceive fools, so that wisdom as 

 well as wealth is flying from the agricultural in- 

 terest, and taking up her residence with the policy 

 of mnking capital employed under charters, in cre- 

 dit shops and in manufacturing, more profitable 

 than capital employed in agriculture. This union 

 of wisdom and wealth, vvill in time reduce agri- 

 culture to the European regimen, and the agricul- 

 turists to the grade of tenants to a system for fos- 

 tering dealers in money and credit, at the expense 

 of the makers of bread, meat and cloth. This 

 system, however slowly, certainly creates a class 

 of rich and wise, and a class of poor and ignorant 

 and terminates of course in some European form 

 ofirovernment. 



I have heard it said that the weight of talents 

 in congress has already appeared very visibly 

 against the agriculturists. Let iis not deceive 

 ourselves by ascribing this to popular folly in elec- 

 tions. It is owing to the transit of wealth, and of 

 course wisdom, from agriculture to its natural ene- 

 mies, charter and privilege. This constant pro- 

 cess diminishes daily the chance for elections to hit 

 on rigricultural talents, and vvill soon destroy the 

 power to obtain them. If the fact exists as to a 

 deficiency of these talents in congress, it proves 

 the exiiitence of a moral system which begets that 

 fact, and discloses the inevitable fate of tlie agri- 

 cultural interest. 



