226 [Assembly 



ing the heavens, her green fields waving in the sunlight, her borders 

 girded by the ocean, her bosom severed by mighty and rushing rivers 

 and pierced by lakes, themselves ocean-like ; and more than all, re- 

 member that her sons are free — subject to no restraints, amenable to 

 no laws, accountable to no tribunals not self-imposed and instituted, 

 vire are constrained to acknowledge the fearful trust, and to seek the 

 duties it involves : for neither country, nor institutions, nor diverse en- 

 dowments, shall redeem us from strict account. 



Of the great and growing amount of agricultural produce which the 

 different sections of our land afford, what, and how, and where is the 

 consumption ? 



First, at home ! for nineteen millions of men are to be sustained, 

 and can obtain sustenance from no foreign source. The farmer feeds 

 the country. His unostentatious labor makes the heart of the land 

 to beat with life. But his surplus food would be of little worth if no 

 market were open to him except that which he himself could find. 

 His sphere is at home. It is there his virtues shine. He thrives not 

 in the din which men make, but in the quiet which God has stamped 

 on his creation. When the harvest has been gathered in, and the 

 granaries bend under their weight, and the work of the farmer has 

 ended, the merchant and the ship stand ready, and with quick 

 haste the varied products are scattered upon the wings of the wind 

 an d steam, by river and by lake, along the iron road or upon the 

 ocean wave, throughout our own borders, and wherever upon the earth 

 there are men to be supplied. Such are the calling of the farmer and 

 the aids the merchant renders him. Is it not passing strange that 

 where interests so intertwined are manifest, aught of jealous feeling 

 should put asunder what has been thus joined together ? There is 

 with us a singular closeness and unity between these leading pursuits. 

 For the commerce of most vital import to us as a nation striving for 

 individual and aggregate advancement, for the attainment and securi- 

 ty of solid comfort, is not that whose stage is the world, but that whose 

 design and scope is confined at home. You live here in the focus of 

 commercial light and heat. The keen contest for mastciy in the diffi- 

 cult career of life has secured for you the wreath of the victor. We 

 yield the palm to you with one voice. Your rich city is our queen of 

 commerce. She stands upon her own proud monument. Rut its 

 base rests on the soil we tread upon. The farmer by his hard toil 

 has worked for you; the manufacturer, who from the raw material 



