32 MR. BRAUAIV'S ADDRESS. 



will ponr out their riches into the lap of protected and well 

 rewarded labor. Slavery and serfdom are contending with 

 unequal hand against the progress of ideas, freedom and reli- 

 gion. The system of tenantry will be shaken down in these 

 imquiet and revolutionary times, and free cultivation, indepen- 

 dent ownership, labor urged by unconstrained and sponta- 

 neous impulse, and guided by the light of intelligence, will 

 give agriculture its just rank among human employments, and 

 infuse new vigor into its progress of renovating the earth. 



We have reason to congratulate ourselves on the agricultur- 

 al prospects of our country. The wide ocean which separates 

 us from the old world disjoins us, in a great degree, from 

 the defects and vices of its political and social systems. The 

 vast waters roll their everlasting barrier between the freedom 

 and enterprise of these new shores, and the mighty fabrics of 

 selfishness and oppression, which have blasted the fairest por- 

 tions of the earth, and crushed the arm of agricultural toil for 

 two hundred generations. With no despotism to snatch the 

 earnings from the hand of labor, with no system of tenantry 

 and entail to enrich the lordly proprietor at the expense of the 

 vassal ; with an unparalleled diffusion of popular intelligence, 

 and moral influence, and the whole system of society moving 

 forward under the high pressure of such mighty aud healthful 

 influences, as never stimulated the industry and enterprise of 

 any people, in this opening era of invention anjd improvement, 

 what wonders of agricultural achievement may not the course 

 of time witness, and what a green robe of beauty will not the 

 skillful hand of labor weave over the whole face of the un- 

 ion. One deplorable exception to encouraging indications 

 stands out too prominent to be passed in silence. We must 

 confess the presence of that bane of agricultural prosperity, that 

 mildew upon the soil, domestic slavery. But its limits are as- 

 certained, and its doom is sure. The whole spirit of repub- 

 licanism, and the American notions of political right and 

 equality are in direct antagonism with the institution. Every 

 slaveholder sees in the bondmen before him so many living 

 contradictions of his doctrine of inalienable rights, and his 

 professions of democratic freedom. The human countenance 



