MR. braman's address. 9 



states of society, operates advantageously to the interests of 

 agriculture. When a colony takes possession of a new and 

 extensive region of the earth, it is asserted that unless there is 

 some mode by which proprietors can compel laborers into their 

 service, it will be impossible to obtain an adequate supply. 

 Abundance of land can be so cheaply obtained, and the desire 

 of independencq^is so natural and strong, that each one aspires 

 to become the owner of a plantation, instead of a laborer on 

 hire. The consequence is, that the immigrants become wide- 

 ly dispersed, and separate from each other ; each one being so 

 isolated, and apart from the rest, is obliged to distribute his 

 labor among a variety of employments, to furnish himself with 

 the accommodations of life, and the culture of the soil re- 

 ceives very scanty and insufficient attention ; added to this, 

 they are separated asunder by so wide tracts, that highways 

 and facilities of communication, so essential to the prosperous 

 state of agricultural improvements, are wanting to connect the 

 inhabitants, as in more dense settlements, together. The 

 Virginia colony, and another established on the western coast 

 of New Holland many years since, are referred to among the 

 illustrations of this position. One of the principal individuals 

 of the latter colony, who took with him from England a capital 

 of 250,000 dollars, and three hundred laborers, was so com- 

 pletely deserted that he had not an assistant to make his bed or 

 bring him water from the river. His capital wasted away for 

 want of laborers to preserve and keep it in a productive condi- 

 tion. 



But without controverting this view of the subject, it may 

 be truly affirmed, that whatever peculiar and temporary cir- 

 cumstances may render slavery a source of agricultural im- 

 provement, it is, on the whole, a great obstacle to its rapid 

 advance. It is one part of the temporal, righteous retribution, 

 which the crime of slavery carries with it, — that it wastes the 

 soil, and deteriotates the art on which it bestows its labors. 

 No country furnishes a clearer illustration of the assertion than 

 ancient Italy. In the later periods of the Roman republic, 

 slavery had spread to a most enormous extent. There were 

 probably twice as many slaves as freemen, and almost the 

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