MEMOIR OF ELI WHITNEY. 295 



^ealness — until, intoxicated with power, they become demoralized, and degen- 

 erate, and cruel, and finally bow submissively to the rule of some upstart usurper, 

 prepared again by Providence to govern and to punish those who had not virtue 

 to govern themselves. Quisque suos patiniur manes. After all, who cannot per- 

 ceive that the greater or less perfection in all social arrangements and systems 

 of government, consists in their presenting, or not, motives adequate to the in- 

 surance of virtuous deeds, and actions most conformable to the general weal ? 

 Hence the policy as well as the obligation which rests on all nations, and espe- 

 cially on republics, to see that the laws offer adequate incentives to patriotism, 

 and that, above all things, reliable security and reward be held out to inventors 

 and discoverers in the sciences and in useful branches of national industry. 

 Without security there will not long be any industry or invention. No man will 

 freeiv exercise his mental powers unless he be well convinced that he will be 

 allowed to reap all the advantages accruing from his skill or genius, no more 

 than the merchant will invest his capital in securities tainted with the least odor 

 of suspicion. The inventions of such men as Bogardus and Whitney constitute 

 their legitimate property ; and a most sacred and honorable species of property it 

 is ; and it has been well observed, that if, owing to the weakness or ignorance of 

 Government, the security of property or of inventions be materially impaired, all 

 sorts of industrious undertakings that do not inonuse immediale return, would be 

 immediately abandoned. The want, in such cases, of adequate security and reward 

 to individuals, is in truth one of the greatest of public calamities. In their ab- 

 sence we should soon find nothing but the most abject poverty and barbarism ; 

 and supposing other things equal, the wealth and civilization of nations would 

 be pretty nearly proportioned to the security of property they enjoy and the re- 

 ward they bestow on scientific and distinguished benefactors of .industrial pur- 

 suits and men of eminent virtue in civil trusts. Every other circumstance con- 

 ducive 10 the advancement of industry may exist in a country, but without secu- 

 rity to property and to inventions these will be of no material service. A high 

 degree of security and rewards proportioned to the usefulness of inventors and 

 the integrity of public service will compensate for many disadvantages in the 

 condi''on and circumstances of a nation, but nothing can make up for the want 

 of these. They constitute, in a word, the sine qua non of every species of pros- 

 perity. 



We are now at that point in our narrative where one of those prominent and 

 proximate circumstances usually denominated accidents was to put in imme- 

 diate play the mechanical genius of Eli Whitney for a new combination of me- 

 chanical power, that was destined to revolutionize not merely the agricultural 

 industry of our own country, but, in cooperation with the subsequent invention 

 of Arkwright, of kindred genius, was to influence the manufacturing, commer- 

 cial and money power of the whole universe. 



ISot long afterward a large party of gentlemen came from Augusta and the 

 Upper country, to visit the family of Gen. Greene, consisting principally of offi- 

 cers who had served under the General in the Revolutionary army. Among the 

 number were Major Bremen, Major Forsyth, and Major Pendleton. They fell 

 into conversation upon the state of Agriculture among them, and expressed great 

 regret that there was no means of cleaning the green seed cotton, or separating 

 it from its seed, since all the lands which were unsuitable for the cultivation of 

 rice would yield large crops of cotton. But until ingenuity could devise some 

 machine which would greatly facilitate the process of cleaning, it was in vain 



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