642 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. 9 



riet}'. to improve our husbandry — increase our ag- 

 ricultural wealth — and strengthen our security 

 against desolating emi^xration ; and nothing more 

 is required 1o render lliem ell'ectual for all ihese 

 vital purposes, hut that public sjjirit, untiring indus- 

 try, activil}' and perse verenc.e which characterize 

 our northern and eastern brethren. Thousands 

 of these are making forlunes — if not as rapiilly 

 as the cotton and sugar planters of the south, yet 

 with all reasonable speed, and moreover, in peace 

 and safety ; while the latter are making them at 

 the daily hazard of their lives ; hazards incvhably 

 produced by climate, or incidentally, but not the 

 less certainly, by such universal laxity — nay, total 

 inefficiency of legal restraints as most unquestion- 

 ably renders the three great blesings of free go- 

 vernment, li!e, liberty, and property, far less se- 

 cure than in any of tiie o'd thirteen United States. 

 I say not this from any invidious motive towards 

 our younger sister states ; no, God forbid ; but 

 simply to urge what I believe to be an undeniable 

 fact as an inducement to prefer an old to a new- 

 settled country ; in other words, to live in and die 

 by old Virginia. Without doubt there are thou- 

 sands of as good moral men in the new states, as 

 in the old ; but the truth, I think, cannot be de- 

 nied, that there is far less power — I will not say 

 inclination — in the former, to restrain and punish 

 the immoral portion of their population; and hence 

 the per|jetration of a much greater number of 

 those outrages and crimes that mar the peace and 

 happiness of every community wherein they are 

 committed. The uppetile for making money in 

 the new states would lie quite as strong in the old, 

 if constantly stimulated and provoked by the 

 same powerful incentives: for man is much the 

 same in his passions every where. But we have 

 less of that demoralizing spirit of speculation, en- 

 gendered by the inordinate lust for wealth, be- 

 cause there are much fewer subjects and opportu- 

 nities to gratify it. Our governments being much 

 older, all the different trades, professions and call- 

 ings, essential to a regularly organized society, 

 have long existed among us, in a numerical ratio 

 duly proportioned, or nearly so, to each other. 

 The necessary consequence of this state ol' things 

 is, that a systematic, uniform course of business is 

 established for each, which, in a great measure, 

 precludes speculation: labor, food, clothing, and 

 all which constitutes the material for the internal 

 trade and commerce of the country, possess an in- 

 terchangeable value approaching much nearer to 

 a certainty, and therefore afibrding far less chance 

 for those inordinate gains so frequently made in 

 new countries, and which form the sole temptation 

 with most persons to seek them. The new set- 

 tlers there, (with very few exceptions,) soon be- 

 come, to the citizens of old countries, what the 

 lottery brokers and dealers in that species of gam- 

 bling a.'^e to the regular tradesmen and 3'eomanrv 

 in every country. The first cannot exist content 

 with small, or even moderate profits ; but live in a 

 constant state of feverish excitement, and with an 

 omnivorous appetite for gain, whose cravings in- 

 crease with every new sui)[)ly of food, however 

 enormous in quantity that may be. This appe- 

 tite by fi-equent indulgence, soon becomes a dis- 

 ease — not less destructive, both to moral and 

 physical health, than drunkenness ; and he who 

 voluntarily, and with no better motive than to in- 

 crease wealth already sufficient, places himself in 



an atmosphere wherein he is daily and hourly ex- 

 posed to contract it, (as almost every settler in our 

 new Slates does) can hardly expect to escape, nor 

 does he merit exemption. The worst consecjuence 

 of this all-absorbing passion is, that, in llie uni- 

 versal scnmible for dollars and cents which it in- 

 evitably produces, public spirit is |>aralyzed — our 

 benevolent and social fl^elings are blunted, if not 

 annihilated, our regard for the preservation of or- 

 der and the inviohtbility of law is either lost or 

 forgotten, and the moral condition of society grows 

 worse and worse, until it becomes so intolerable as 

 to end in civil commotion and bloodshed. Men 

 know not themselves while living under a govern- 

 ment of laws, where justice is regularly adminis- 

 tered, and crimes certainly punished. But let 

 them once get beyond these salutary restraints, 

 and many of them soon become as difi'erent ani- 

 mals as if they belonged to an entirely different 

 race of beings. To what other causes, but such 

 as I have enumerated, can we ascribe the noto- 

 rious facts, that in some of our new states, it has 

 not unfrequently happened that citizens, in broad 

 day-light, shoot, and assassinate each other with 

 entire impunity, in their own houses, and in the 

 public streets of their towns and villages; that the 

 civil magistrate, in attempting the execution of his 

 duty, has been mobbed and his lifj endangered ; 

 and that large bodies of men have, on some oc- 

 casions, constituted themselves the judges, jurors, 

 and executioners of several individuals, either by 

 hanging them without anv process of law whate- 

 ver, or murdering them in a jail to which they 

 had been legally committed? The creed and 

 practice of such men might be given in a lew 

 words, and thus catechetically stated. 



"Who made you? I don't know. For Avhat 

 purpose where you made 7 To do what I please, 

 if strong enough, and to make money. VVhat is 

 the use of making it? To make more. What 

 are the means ? Any which you believe you can 

 practice successful l_v. Are hetilth, and life, and 

 reputation worth risking for such a purpose? Aye, 

 verilj', and much more, since the command of 

 money enables j'ou to command every thing else 

 in this world, exce])t the three trifles just mention- 

 ed." 



If it be asked, "why such remarks, in an agri- 

 cultural address?" The answer is, that one of 

 the most essential means to improve our husban- 

 dry will be to stop the emigration of our farmers 

 and planters ; and that such statements as I have 

 given, founded upon notorious fiicts, must have a 

 tendency, at least, to check the desertion of our 

 state. 



Another very eflective means of improving our 

 husbandry in general, and our agriculture in par- 

 ticular, would be to secure legislative aid for it; 

 and this might certainly be done, if we could only 

 prevail upon our agricultural brethren, one and all, 

 forever to abandon the ruinous practice of making 

 a man's political partyism, the chiefj if not the 

 sole test of his fitness to legislate for us. Rely 

 on it, my friends, we never shall obtain any thing 

 from our legislatures, constituted as they now are, 

 and long have been — never indeed, until we send 

 firm, well known, devoted fiiendsof the landed in- 

 terest to represent us, instead of men whose chief 

 employment it has been, lor years, to waste their 

 own time and the public money, in utterly fruit- 

 less party quarrels, and vain boastings about their 



