ADDRESS 



OF COL. DANIEL NEEDIIAM, OF GROTON, BEFORE TUE WORCESTER NORTH 

 AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, AT FITCIIBURG. 



Mr. President, and Gentlemen op the Society. — The 

 few minutes of time which I shall occupy, will be devoted to the 

 consideration of the subject of labor. Not labor as it is under- 

 stood and appreciated in England and Ireland, or on the Conti- 

 nent of Europe ; but labor as understood and appreciated in the 

 nineteenth century, in this Western World, which it is our mis- 

 sion to aid in Christianizing. Labor as Americanized, or Amer- 

 ican labor, may be more properly termed the subject of my ad- 

 dress. 



We, as Americans, have nationalized labor. From the product 

 of the centuries we have created a system differing widely from 

 all previous systems of labor, and which seems to me with great 

 significance can be denominated the American system. Origi- 

 nal with us ; finding neither its counterpart or resemblance in 

 any system heretofore in operation either in the Mother Coun- 

 try or in the older nations of the East. A system which has 

 given a dignity and character to labor — which has not only 

 robbed it of its ugly features so repellant in the history of the 

 past, but given to it a charm and a power making it both desir- 

 able and attractive. 



When the Fathers landed and colonized Plymouth and es- 

 tablished on these far-off western shores a new home, they estab- 

 lished also a new civilization. They broke off not only from the 

 conventionalisms of European and Eastern Governments, but 

 from the established usages of organized society. In fact they 

 became new men ; — a new race of men ; — differing Avidely in 

 opinion, in habit of life, in thought, motive and action from all 

 who had preceded them. They had new ideas of life ; — of so- 



