POSITION OF THE FARMER. 91 



broad enough for daily peaceful victories over an unsubdued 

 wilderness. The Roman emperors, the statesmen and generals 

 of that great empire, were proud to develop the agriculture of 

 their country by devoted application. They learned to love the 

 soil on which rested their power and glory. But the American 

 citizen, engaged in a higher and nobler work, carries with him 

 into new lands the rights of a freeman, and by his devotion to 

 agriculture, insures a constant supply of new strength to the 

 heart of a great nation. As we contemplate the work of this 

 modern hero, we should learn to admire and wonder at the 

 power of his profession. We should never forget that the 

 wealth which is added to our nation by the energies of the West, 

 comes from those vast regions where man's chiefest occupation 

 is tilling the soil. The rich luxuriant lands of Ohio, the fertile 

 prairies which send forth their stores of grain, the undeveloped 

 resources of the north-west, the profusion of southern savannas, 

 offering us the great staples of our trade, all rely upon the 

 application of agriculture for the discharge of their important 

 duties, and for the support they are eager to render the civil 

 fabric erected by our fathers on this continent. 



To us, as a free people, agriculture should be peculiarly dear. 

 It is this alone, which, under the management of a general 

 ownership of the soil, can destroy those social distinctions that 

 conflict with all true republican institutions. That poverty 

 which produces a dependence of one class upon another, and 

 which is the inevitable result of population accumulated by 

 manufactures and commerce, can find no remedy so sure as the 

 occupancy of the soil. A large supply of fertile lands, open 

 for possession by all, will most effectually counteract the ten- 

 dency to poverty, found in over peopled countries, and will 

 prevent the possibility of that preponderance of commercial and 

 manufacturing interests, which will always threaten the exist- 

 ence of a nation. In such landed possessions, moreover, serf- 

 dom must be unknown. And upon such a basis alone can that 

 diffusion of knowledge, that freedom of religion, that indis- 

 criminate security of political rights, be found which constitute 

 all that an American citizen holds dear, and which are inscribed 

 in our written constitution. 



