10 



secession, that they ivere thus agricultural, and such a people 

 could not be subjugated. Yet it was this same people who 

 gave to the world the revolting spectacle of domestic slavery, 

 and a great civil war waged for its defence. 



But I see no incongruity. It is not fortunate for the body 

 politic when any one industry grows to an inordinate or dis- 

 proportionate bulk. The agriculture of the South was cer- 

 tainly in this position. There were not wholesome manufac- 

 tures enough joined with it to make a stable combination, 

 but it stood as a wall made wholly of mortar, an earthwork 

 merely. And it were no wonder, if, on an agriculture thus 

 overgrown and heedless of its natural associations, there were 

 engrafted the false branches of oppression, fictitious license, 

 and unlawful ambition. Had it kept to its true relationship, 

 as that of our own section had been allowed to do, we should 

 not have seen it fostering slavery, discouraging manufactures, 

 nor despising liberal arts and education, even as it more than 

 despised a free government and the rights of the people. 

 But I hasten forward. A sound agriculture appears as the 

 Best Friend of Honest Trade. 



The highest civilization among men can, probably, never 

 overtop the necessity of commercial traffic. No speculations 

 of Fourier, no Republic of Plato, or Utopia of Sir Thomas 

 More, has yet been able to explain aw\ay the need of mercan- 

 tile exchanges of some sort among the people, and if so, 

 there is almost as great need that they should be honestly 

 condiicted. And here I will ask only your attention to the 

 facts, since I have not time to enter upon the argument a priori. 

 Said the great Webster, in one of his moments of triumph, 

 ' 'There is Massachusetts, look at her ! " Adopting his thought, 

 I say, "There is American Agriculture, look at lierP'' What 



