170 



Memorial from Jlgriculturists. 



Vol. XI. 



tions, not merely for the establishment of 

 Observatories, and lines of Telegraph, un- 

 der the control of the General Government, 

 but to an object strictly analogous to the 

 one we seek, to wit, the annual Agricultu- 

 ral Reports from the Patent-Office. 



All these appropriations of the public mo- 

 ney — chiefly, it is true, as connected with 

 the military operations of the Government — 

 have been avowedly for the purpose of col- 

 lecting and distributing warlike or other in- 

 formation. 



These facts and considerations induce your 

 memorialists to hope that Congress will not 

 now refuse to the people a portion of their 

 own money, for the 'purpose of providing 

 within each State, conformably witli its own 

 policy, institutions and courses of industry, 

 schools for the instruction, also, of the rising 

 generation of planters and farmers in the 

 principles of that great pursuit which has 

 been well pronounced "the nursing mother 

 of all the arts," — a pursuit upon which Con- 

 gressional Reports, useful though they be in 

 their way, xan yet throw but the partial 

 light of fac^ and statements promiscuously 

 gathered up, not always well digested, and, 

 after all, distributed or not, according to the 

 individual pleasure and discretion of mem 

 bers of Congress. 



For the warlike machinery and purposes 

 of this Republican Government, embracing 

 the objects above referred to, several hun- 

 dred millions of dollars have been expended 

 since our last war with a trans-Atlantic 

 power; and this enormous expenditure has 

 really been collected, in very large j^ropor- 

 tion, from the landed interest, since it is 

 that class which has cliiefly consumed the 

 imports on which the revenue has been 

 levied. 



Your memorialists are far from repining 

 at the liberal pay, life commissions, certain 

 promotion, pensions, residences, hospitals, 

 schools and academies built, provided, and 

 kept up, at the public expense, for the two 

 military branches of the Government ; but 

 they humbly think that the time has arrived 

 when the people, the yeomanry of the coun- 

 try — those by whose toil its solid wealth is 

 dug out of the ground — may inquire why, 

 in what view of the " general welfare," it is 

 that since any amount can be found to pro- 

 mote advancement in the science, and suc- 

 cessful practice in the art of war, nothing 

 can be granted for the better instruction of 

 the rising generation of freemen in the sci- 

 ence and practice of that great peaceful pur- 

 suit which employs, feeds, and pays all 

 others? 



Under the most despotic monarchies, men 

 of genius who have conferred signal benefits 



on the industrial pursuits of the people, by 

 scientific discoveries and useful inventions, 

 have been lavishly rewarded, and raised to 

 the highest honours. Mechanics, chemists, 

 astronomers, great naturalists, and learned 

 and enterprising men in every walk of civil 

 life, have been there endowed with titles 

 and fortune. If, under such Governments, 

 stars and garters, and badges of power and 

 respect, have stimulated to heroic deeds in 

 fields of battle, so have they been held up 

 as certain prizes to intellectual excellence, 

 and great accomplishments in the arts and 

 employments of peaceful industry. If schools 

 have there been maintained for training youth 

 in the art of war, so have they been main- 

 tained for teaching the application of the 

 arts and sciences to all the industrial pur- 

 suits of life. 



As republican freeholders, then, we would 

 respectfully inquire whether it be becoming 

 or politic for this nation, whose Government 

 rests for security on the popular intelligence, 

 to imitate European Governments only in 

 the favour and patronage they confer, with 

 self-preserving instinct, on that executive 

 department of their power upon which they 

 lean to protect their existence against the 

 progress of free principles, and the force of 

 public opinion seeking to carry them out? 



It would indeed be passing strange, as it 

 seems to your memorialists, that in a Go- 

 vernment called free, deriving so chiefly all 

 its resources from the agricultural interest, 

 its powers should be so organized as to pre- 

 clude the application of any portion of the 

 public treasure to confessedly, and by far, 

 the greatest of all public concerns! We 

 would respectfully forbear from remarking, 

 as it would seem to deserve, on that mon- 

 strous perversion and abuse of sovereign 

 authoritj', in a Government called republi- 

 can, which should reserve all life tenures, 

 and all pensions, and all enlightenment, for 

 the military, while it renounces the glorious 

 faculty of aiding and rewarding the labours 

 of intellect in the humbler, but so much more 

 useful paths of peaceful, laborious and pro- 

 ductive industry! 



In behalf, then, not so much of themselves, 

 as of the rising generation of agriculturists, 

 on whom our country and its liberties must 

 mainly depend under all vicissitudes, we 

 call upon you, to whom we have consigned 

 for the time the sovereign authority of the 

 State, to demand from the General Govern- 

 ment that something be now, at last, done to 

 foster Agriculture, by diffusing that know- 

 ledge which is power, no less in tlie field of 

 labour than of blood. They believe tliey 

 have a right to expect for this great national 

 purpose, £0 identical with the general wel- 



