6 



every thing for commerce. They can do every thing for 

 the fisheries. They can do every thing for manufactures 

 and the mechanic arts. But the farmers can find nobody 

 to do or to say any thing in their behalf. 



Now, I will not stop to inquire directly how far this 

 language is reasonable or just, either towards our State or 

 National Governments. Nor will I do more than suggest, 

 in this connection, that, if there has been any wrong of this 

 kind, whether of omission or of commission, the redress has 

 always been within the reach of the injured parties; the 

 farmers having always been a great majority in the na- 

 tion at large, embracing, it is estimated, "more than three- 

 fourths of the population," and having thus had it always in 

 their power to control the action of the Government at any 

 time, through the simple agency of the elective franchise. 



But taking it for granted, for a moment, that the allega- 

 tion has been well laid, that the grievance has been real, 

 that an interposition has at last been successfully made, 

 and that the farmers are henceforth about to have their 

 own way in the affairs of the country, I am disposed to 

 ask some such questions as these: — What can Government 

 do for American agriculture? What can it do for the in- 

 terests and welfare of the farmers ? What could it ever 

 have done ? What has it done or left undone hitherto ? 



I do not state these questions as distinct propositions, to 

 be distinctly and formally treated in the order in which 

 they have been stated, like the heads of an old-fashioned 

 sermon, but as presenting the details of a general inquiry 

 which I desire to institute, and, as far as possible, within 

 the reasonable limits of such a discourse, to answer. 



And here, at the outset, let me remark, that it is not 

 altogether easy or practicable to treat the agricultural inter- 

 ests of the United States as a single idea, and to include 

 them all as the subject of a common discussion. When 

 we speak of British agriculture or of European agriculture, 



