18 . MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



plantations, and not equal in value to the loyal home-consumed 

 hay crop of the North, would, nevertheless, in consequence of 

 its abnormal relation to foreign manufactures and the exchanges 

 of Northern commerce, bring the governments of the United 

 States and Europe in submission to their feet. In this belief, 

 when they raised the flag of treason they arrogantly proclaimed 

 cotton to be king. To-day, Massachusetts with the bayonet 

 debates on bloody fields the cause of independence, union and 

 liberty. But it is the same cause which, on questions touching 

 the national industry, she debated through the eloquence of a 

 Webster and a Ghoate. And now, when the policy of national 

 disorganization that has ruled and rioted in the land so many 

 years has culminated in revolt, the first resource of the nation, 

 with which it seeks to invigorate and combine its abused and 

 dissipated strength, is the encouragement of the national indus- 

 try. The prosecution of a gigantic war upon the principles of 

 a sound financial policy calls for large annual revenues ; such a 

 course is necessary to maintain the national credit, and, in the 

 case of an inconvertible currency, to prevent depreciation and 

 the rise of prices. These needed revenues the government 

 derives in largest measure from manufactures. The develop- 

 ment of manufactures, such as can be made to take root by a 

 temporary adjustment of tariff and excise, naturally becomes and 

 has become a part even of the revenue policy of the nation. 

 Accordingly, the country is sprouting with new growths of 

 mechanical and manufacturing industry. Let them cover the 

 land. Let villages and towns, the centres of these imperial and 

 liberalizing arts, multiply and increase, to develop a progressive 

 and prosperous agriculture, to deepen the foundations and 

 quicken the life of society, to distribute the benefits of skilled 

 labor reinforced by an iron-armed machinery, and increased in 

 productiveness a hundred fold, to establish the union of the 

 crop of the farm and the labor of the neighboring factory, foun- 

 dry, or furnace in ultimate products, which shall become the 

 staples of a pervading domestic commerce at the lowest cost of 

 making exclianges ; such a commerce as has been recognized 

 since Adam Smith declared the principles of the wealth of nations 

 as the most profitable to communities and states. So knit the 

 fibres and harden the sinews of the national strength. Science 

 has callud attention to the general fact that tlie simple sub- 



