emergency of famine or of civil war, our farmers will have 

 the undisputed control of onr own markets, without the aid 

 of prohibitory duties or protective tariffs. It may be said 

 to be with our lands, as it certainly is with our liberties: 

 the condition of both may be described by the striking 

 couplet of Dry den: — 



" Our only grievance is excess of ease, 

 Freedom our pain, and plenty our disease." 



Other Governments can do much more for political liberty 

 than our Government can do, because there is so much 

 more of this sort in other countries left to be done. We 

 have a noble system of independence and freedom, already 

 established and secured to us by the toil and treasure and 

 blood of our fathers. We of this generation may say 

 with the glorious apostle : " With a great price purchased 

 they this freedom ; but we were born free." The most, 

 therefore, that any American Government can do now is 

 to maintain, uphold, and administer, according to the true 

 spirit and intent of those who acquired it, the ample patri- 

 mony of freedom which has been bequeathed to us. God 

 grant that there may never be wanting to us rulers capable 

 of doing so ! 



And now, my friends. Nature — 1 should rather say, 

 a kind Providence — has done for our agricultural condi- 

 tion very much what the wisdom and valor of our fathers 

 have effected for our political condition. It has given us a 

 vast extent of virgin soil, susceptible of every variety of 

 culture, and capable of yielding food for countless millions 

 beyond our present population. It is ours to occupy, to 

 enjoy, to improve and preserve it ; and no protective sys- 

 tems are necessary to secure a market for as much of its 

 produce as we, and our children, and our children's children 

 for a hundred generations, can eat. Government can thus 

 do nothing, nothing whatever, in the way of direct and im- 



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