1836.] 



FARMERS' REGISTER, 



621 



other natural advantages far beyond most of our 

 old sister states, we decline in a degree as alarm- 

 ing as it is rapid, while several of them rise contin- 

 ually in relative prosperity and importance, as 

 members of our federal union; lhat thousands of 

 our lellow citizens, in utter hopelessness of better- 

 ing their condition in their native land, are aban- 

 doning the beloved homes of their nativity, for 

 new and strange homes in "the far west;" that 

 this expatriating epidemic is spreading with such 

 fearful rapidity as to threaten the almost entire 

 depopulation of extensive neighborhoods, once 

 the garden spots of Virginia, unless something 

 can speedily be done to arrest its ruinous progress; 

 and that, for this something, we who will not yet 

 "despair of the commonwealth," confidently look 

 to you, our representatives — to you, the legislators 

 of the land, who as certainly have the power, as 

 we hope and trust, the desire also, to do for the 

 vital cause of agriculture, all that we shall ask. 

 Think not, we entreat you, that we are about to pe- 

 tition you for ourselves alone, it is for the best in- 

 terests of our own dear state, and for the adoption 

 of the only means left, (as we believe,) of rescu- 

 ing her from that depopulation and political atro- 

 phy brought upon her by her own shameful ne- 

 glect of all those natural advantages with which 

 an ever bounteous providence hath so abundantly 

 blessed her. 



The facts which we have stated are too noto- 

 rious to be denied, too manifest to pass unnoticed, 

 even by the most careless observer. But their 

 causes are not so obvious nor so recent, as to be 

 well understood without an attentive retrospect 

 into by -gone times. 



Our ancestors generally, like all persons who 

 live in countries wherein the means of subsistence 

 are easily procured in superabundance, seem never 

 to have looked forward to days of comparative 

 scarcity, but wasted, in profuse and luxurious hos- 

 pitality, the time, the industry, and the resources 

 which should have been employed, at least in part, 

 to secure pecuniary independence lor themselves 

 and their posterity. We say not this to censure 

 those whom we have so much cause to venerate 

 and love, but merely as the statement of an im- 

 portant fact, which would be equally true of our- 

 selves, could we be placed in a similar situation. 

 We, their children, thoughtlessly trained up in the 

 same habits, unwarned of our inability to indulge 

 them to the same extent, have pursued a similar 

 course. With means continually, inevitably di- 

 minishing by the constant subdivision of property, 

 without any proporfu late reduction in expendi- 

 ture, we opened our eyes too late, to the startling 

 fact of rapid decline, both in private wealth and 

 state influence. Our commonwealth, once con- 

 fessedly the first in the union — our beloved old 

 state, who once gave away a principality for the 

 preservation of that union, has lived to see the day 

 when some, (we will not, say which,) who gave 

 nothing, together with many of the very receivers 

 of her bounty, are jeering and taunting her with 

 her comparative weakness. We would scorn to 

 urge this by way of complaint, but we do it to 

 rouse our fellow citizens, if possihle, 1o a closer 

 attention hereafter to our own state interests. 



What aggravates much the evils of which we. 

 complain, is that, although our eyes are now wide 

 open to the evils themselves, too many of us seem 

 still utterly blind to the causes which have pro- 



duced them. Thus you will find thousands most 

 latuitously ascribing them to our lands, our slaves, 

 our geographical position; in short, to any thing, 

 rather than to the causes just mentioned, and to 

 our own habits of comparative indolence and im- 

 providence. These, so long as they prevail, must 

 continue to render useless every natural advantage 

 that we either do or could possibly possess. We 

 seem entirely unaware, that these deadly poisons 

 of ever}' community can never be cured by mere 

 change of residence, or simply, by substituting 

 the culture of cotton, and the sugar cane, for that 

 of corn, wheat, tobacco, or any other staple of the 

 old states. We either forget, or have never learn- 

 ed, that without increased industry and economy, 

 the opportunity alone to make money will never 

 cause its accumulation; but that with these indis- 

 pensable qualities to the acquirement and preser- 

 vation of wealth, even very inferior advantages 

 of soil and climate will be more available than the 

 richest lands the sun ever shone upon, to secure 

 all the comforts, conveniences,and enjoyments of 

 life, that rational men ought to desire. That we still 

 have two of the indispensable prerequisites to the 

 fruition of every blessing derivable from govern- 

 ment, cannot be truly denied; prerequisites with- 

 out which the wealth of the Indies would be to- 

 tally insufficient to secure temporal happiness. 

 These are, a public sentiment and moral force, 

 fully adequate, and at all times desirous to main- 

 tain the majesty of the laws. We have a civil 

 power too, fully competent to punish, in the most 

 exemplary manner, all who violate the same, or 

 commit outrages of the kind, either against the 

 peace and order of our community, or the rights of 

 its citizens. 



In offering these remarks, we mean to make no 

 invidious insinuations against such of our new 

 states and territories as are continually receiving 

 accessions of citizens from Virginia; let these em- 

 igrants themselves inform those whom they leave 

 behind, whether they have changed for the better 

 or worse, so far as regards the conservative influ- 

 ence of public sentiment over morals and manners; 

 the exerted power of the laws of the land; and 

 the efficiency of the civil authority in compelling 

 obedience to them. 



We most solemnly assure our friends and rela- 

 tives, who have lately left us, as well as the long 

 settled and native citizens of the "far west,,' that 

 we feel not the slightest inclination to exaggerate, 

 or "set down aught in malice," against the land 

 of their choice. Its prosperity must always be a 

 source of gratification to us, for their sakes, how- 

 ever we may individually suffer by some of the 

 means of its promotion. If we have heard false 

 acounts of their state of society, let them unde- 

 ceive us; let them give us the truth; and should it 

 prove that we have been misinformed although our 

 opinions are derived from their own public journals, 

 we will cheerfully retract, however we may lament 

 the consequent breaking up of lamilies, and the loss 

 to Virginia of more of her best blood. We mean 

 not to harm others, but merely to be true to our- 

 selves. In doing this, we shall always deem it 

 our duty to as<ert and maintain, until better in- 

 formed, that life, liberty, and property, (the pos- 

 sessions which government was formed to protect;) 

 are yet more secure in most of the old states, than in 

 si veral of the new, or in our territories: that the land 

 of our nativity, drooping and care-worn, and depre- 



