316 Extracts from ihe Journals. [April, 



which your own paper regularly contains — nor, most important of 

 all, does it speak the sentiments of your own county. 



" The exclusive circulation of city papers tends to centralize all 

 public opinion, to submit the feeling and action of all the land to 

 city dictation, and to destroy that country steadiness and indepen- 

 dence which it should be our pride to maintain, and which has 

 already been alluded to as so important to the public welfare. 

 Its loss, and the monopoly of influence by a few great cities, 

 would be a system of centralization, far more dangerous to our 

 permenent liberty than any which the most ultra federalist of the 

 last century ever projected — and its maintenance is more impor- 

 tant to our true interest, than the success or defeat of half of the 

 political measures which convulse our land. 



" Let us, then, support our own presses — the organs by which 

 our sentiments should be expressed, and our interests defended. 

 Are you a whig? Then take the county paper which advocates 

 the principles of your party. Are you a democrat? Then sub- 

 scribe for the organ of your political class. Use your own pre- 

 ference as regards such distinctions, but let the first paper which 

 you make a visitor to your home, be one of those printed in your 

 ow:i county. 



" The feeling of attachment to the country in general, is closely 

 allied to, and aids to produce one of attachment to a particular 

 spot or locality, which, as tending to maintain a fixed and stable 

 population, is of great value and importance. One of the defi- 

 ciencies in American character, caused by the extent of our terri- 

 tory, is the want of fixed attachment to, and preference of, a par- 

 ticular residence or home. To encourage such a local attach- 

 ment should be among our main objects, for in the prosecution of 

 none could more benefit accrue from success. 



" Wherever men consider themselves permanently settled to 

 spend their lives, they at once acquire a deep interest in the 

 place. In acting for their own future advantage, they act for the 

 advantage of the country where they reside. Houses are better 

 built, lands are more carefully cultivated, roads are better made, 

 churches, schools, and public institutions of every kind are more 

 earnestly and liberally supported. All is done substantially and 

 well. The country thus benefitted and improved, attracts the best 

 class of inhabitants, and it becomes still more our interest as well 

 as our wish to remain in it, and enjoy its increased advantages. 



" On this account, our national propensity to change and emi- 

 gration is a great difficulty in the way of our steady advance and 

 improvement. We are too ready to " Go West," to leave the 

 home where we have always lived, and the friends whom we have 



