MK. BRAMAN S ADDRESS. oj 



that meets the eye, and the articulate speech that sahites the 

 ear, and the hmbs that perform the toil of the planter, lift up 

 three millions of voices, loud as the sound of many waters, to 

 proclaim that the bill of sale and the deed of inheritance by 

 which the bondmen are held, are against republican law, 

 republican right, republican freedom, and republican re- 

 ligion, and ought to be null and void, and altogeth- 

 er held for nothing. This obstacle to agriculture in the states 

 where it is situated, must fall. The same influences before 

 which it fell in many parts of the old world are asaulting it 

 with a more vigorous impulse here. The progress of the age 

 is against it. The civilization of the nineteenth century is a- 

 gainst it. The lights of science are against it. The improve- 

 ments of the arts are against it. The increasing humanity of 

 the times, the spirit of freedom, the brightening course of 

 Christianity, no where more conspicuous and effectual than in 

 this new land, are hastening its downfall, and the arm of the 

 Almighty is lifted up for its overthrow. 



1 proceed to notice some of those modes in which improve- 

 ment of agriculture can be promoted. 



1. The system of popular education should enlist our ar- 

 dent sympathy and support. Three fourths of the people of 

 the United States are said to be engaged in the labors of the 

 field. These three fourths reside in the country, and are re- 

 ceiving their education principally from the common schools. 

 A very small proportion extend it beyond the means which 

 these seminaries afl'ord for mental cultivation. So far as the 

 influence of the school is concerned, they owe the direction 

 and discipline of their minds and the information with which 

 they are stored to these sources of instruction. They are 

 three times of as much consequence to the farmer, as to all the 

 other classes of community, so far as relates to the numbers 

 connected with them, beside the importance which they de- 

 rive from the fact, that such kind of education is for the most 

 part acquired in them, without the additional aid of academic 

 and other higher institutions. It is the concern then of every 

 farmer, and of all others who feel interested in the improve- 

 ment of this class of our citizens, as well as in the progress 

 5 



