22 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



the land holders enjoy in respect to rank as a class, or even as 

 to the character of the crops they raise, leads them to call for 

 different laws, or clothes them with different responsibilities and 

 powers, and holds out different motives to effort, it is not diflfi- 

 cult to see that, in spite of any preconceived wishes on their 

 part, not only might the agriculturists of different sections, thus 

 divided, become alienated from each other, but it could hardly 

 fail to involve other interests in a similar antagonism of feeling. 

 If for instance any thing like a spirit of democracy could grow 

 up in one section, while that of aristocracy prevailed in another, 

 who does not see how easy it might be for a set of selfish poli- 

 ticians to turn these sources of alienation to their own account, 

 and to fan this feeling into one of passion and hate ? 



Now let us look for a moment, at the condition of these two 

 sections in the broad daylight of their agricultural interest and 

 economy, the division and ownership of their lands, the labor 

 by which they are cultivated and the relative rank they hold 

 in the scale of occupations and employments into which the 

 community around them is divided. 



Looking first at what so many regard the chief cause of the 

 discord which prevails, — the question of labor, — we shall find 

 that the irreconcilable conflict between voluntary and involun- 

 tary service has been gaining strength and consistency with 

 every step which the South has been taking in enlarging the 

 extent of individual proprietorship of lands. 



Up to 1780, we had slaves all over New England as well as 

 the other colonies. But the farms here were small, and their 

 owners were neither able uor disposed to employ many of this 

 class upon their estates, or to shrink, themselves from labor. 

 The genius of our institutions was always hostile to slavery as 

 an institution, and a law, passed as early as 1641, had it been 

 applied, would have exempted every native born child from the 

 condition of a slave. The consequence was that, so far as it 

 existed at all, it was strictly a domestic institution, where the 

 master and the slave wrought in the same field, eat at the same 

 table and went together to the same church. 



This state of things, moreover, stamped a character upon 

 New England institutions, for agriculture was its great and 

 leading interest for near two hundred years. Navigation and 

 the fisheries gave lucrative employment to great numbers of 



