52 



THE NEW GENESEE FARMER, 



H09IB INDUSTRY. I tbe greatest amouiu of boppiness and good. Butliow 



Agreeably to promise, we eubjoin the reBoUitions at is this to be effected— certainly not by neglecting our 

 a late meeting of the fiiends of Home industry in ! own to take care of the interests of other people. Our 

 Rochester. Having been instructed to report them, \ powers are at best small, and our sphere of notion bm- 

 they at least embody our own sentiments ; and we j ited. Every man acts most efficiently in Operating 

 see no reason to retract or alter them. We have at upon what is nearest to himself. Would a man then 

 least no pnnizaii views in the case. | do most good, he must do what he can to mend him- 



In the present condition of society, it is idle to think 'self, then to make his family liappy, to provide for 

 of reaching the perfectionof any thing. We shall be their welfare and happiness, and then his town and 

 fortunate if in any cose, we can reach the best possi- then his own country. Certainly he must violate no 

 ble. In respect to many things, right and wrong are I law of justice or kindness in doing this ; he is not to 

 intrinsic, absolute, unchangeable, and admit of no seek to rise upon the oppresciort or injury of others ; 



thus every encouragement should be given to homo 

 industry. Without regard to any other people or 

 country, we are bound first of all to provii'e for our- 

 selves. In seeking to make our own country as in- 

 dustrious, as prosperous, and as ihdcperdciit as we 

 can, we best serve the public good and the good of all ; 

 and on the highest principles of Christianity nothing 

 more can be demanded of us than that noble principle 

 incorporated into our constitution, which offers our 

 country as a free asylum for the unfortunate and op- 

 pressed and downtrodden of every land ; and admits 



quaUfication ; but in many cases duty grows out of 

 circumstances ; and that which would be unquestion- 

 ably right and best in some cases, in a change of con- 

 dition ceases to be obligatory or expedient. The doc- 

 Irines of the irce trade party, the peace party, the 

 non-resistants, the no-government party, when jus 

 tice is done to their principles and motives, breathe the 

 highest philanthropy ; but they seem utterly impracti 

 cable in the piesent state of society We admire the 

 generous aims of noble minds devoted to these great 

 objects ; but the loftiness of their purposes destroys 

 the efficiency of their labors. The man who walks 

 through the thronged streets of a city with his head 

 turned and immoveably fixed upon the stars, will be 

 likely to strike against a poet, to tumble into a gutter, 

 or to run down many a passenger. Or if he under- 

 takes to leap a ditch, which is too wide to be spanned 

 by any human agility, it is not difficult to say where 

 he will fall. Whoever would get along in the safest 

 and best way for himself and others in the street must 

 keep his elbows in, give ne well as take, remember 

 other men's rights, take care of bis own ; and while 

 fixed in his determination to show no discourtesy, un- 

 kindness, or injustice towards those whom he meets, 

 or who are travelling the same vmy as himself, and at 

 the same time to preserve his own personal safety and 

 progress, be must in some measure regulate hismove- 

 ments by the movements or dispositions of those 

 about him. If he in9ists upon more of the side-walk 

 than belongs to him he deserves to be jostled off. If 

 he chooses to yield in every case, there will be enough 

 who, without compunction, will throw him into the 

 gutter. If he chooses to step aside and remain until 

 the crowd have passed, this dieintcrestedncss will be 

 fatal to all progress ; and as wise ao the determination 

 of the traveller who sat down on the river's bank to 

 wait until the waters should all flow by before he 

 crossed. 



We often admire the man, who yields his rights to 

 others rather than maintain them against violence or 

 oppression. This many times springs from a benev- 

 olence of the highest character, but often as mistaken 

 as it is disinterested. If any man stood alone in this 

 ■world, if his condition were not ultimately insepera- 

 bly linked in with the condition of others, and to 

 what extent no human imagination can determine, be 

 might at pleasure make any personal sacrifices and 

 yield any rights. But tbe condition of no human be- 

 ing living is thus insulated, and no man can yield any 

 of his own rights without jeoparding the rights of 

 others, or establishing a precedent for an encroach- 

 ment upon theirs. The ilocliine of expediency, not 

 in a low and contracted sense, but in the most eleva- 

 ted and comprehensive view, is the foundation of all 

 >ight, because it is conformable to the will of God, 

 which aims at the happiness of all men. 



It would be charming indeed to see all men brought 

 entirely under the dominion of universal love, in which 

 every other man's happiness should be as dear to us 

 BB our own. This spirit of universal love and justice 

 should actuate us ; but how this spirit or principle 

 will beet exert itself in any particular case must de- 

 pend upon the circumstances of that case. This 



them to a full participation of all our civil and social 

 but within these rules, he must labor and can labor | benefits, upon the reasonnble conditions of good con- 

 with success only in this direct luanner. If every duct and a due subordination to the laws and institu- 



man shoidd neglect his own family to take care of his 

 neighbor's, neither would be so efficiently or so well 

 served as if each performed his duly to his own. In 

 the preaeiit condition of human nature, therefore, the 

 only principle upon which individuals or families, or 

 larger communities, can properly act is not n mean 

 and morose selfishness, which always leads to fraud 

 and injustice ; but an enlightened self-interest, which 

 seeks continually to rectify wrong, to do good, to 

 make good better and better best within its own imme- 

 diate sphere. Here its powers will be most efficiently 

 applied ; here the efi'ects of its exertions can be best 

 watched over and controlled ; and here cor.sequently, 

 it is bound first of all and constantly to exert itself. 



Toliiical Economy, though like every other science, 

 very much mystified by men, who either want to 

 make a parade of learning or else having no clsar ideas 

 on any subject, stir up tbe mud from the bottom when 

 they get eVeii into the clearest water, or otherwise, 

 who want to controvert the plainest and most establish- 

 ed principles, and inslead of conforming to nolureore 

 vain enough to think they can make her conform to 

 their notions, is as simple as domestic economy, and 

 rests upon precisely the same principles. The best 

 ordered and the most prosperous family is that, which 

 seeks as far as it can without the most obvious disad- 

 vantage, to supply its own wants from its own resour- 

 tes within itself. If it demands the aid of others it 

 will first be sure of the means of paying for that aid, 

 and especially be equally certain that others will be 

 willing to receive their pay in the products of its own 

 industry. It will in no case encumber itself with 

 debt, unless it be that wholesome credit for tbe sake 

 of productive improvements or inveetments, where 

 the provision for the extinction of the debt is sure as 

 any thing human can be, and made when that credit 

 is assumed^ It will seek first of all to give employ- 

 ment to every member of its own household in the 

 various forms to which their capacities, dispositions, 

 or habits are best adapted, because the interest of each 

 one is the interest of all, the duties and obligations 

 are reciprocal and thus the productive power of all is 

 most certainly and successfully availed of. Above 

 all, it will spend nothing for supeifluities until neces- 

 saries are provided, nothing for elaganeies until com- 

 forts are obtained. Then there can be no objection 

 to the innocent luxuries and elegancies of life, where 

 there arc the means of paying for them from tbe sur- 

 plus profits not needed or required for the equal com- 

 fort and benefit of all tbe members of the household. 

 This is sometimes stigmatised as a Robinson Crnsoe 

 and selfish system. AVe only add that in its moial 

 tendencies upon character, improvement and domestic 

 happiness, it has prove. I itself over and over again in 

 tbe highest degree salutary. Certainly it cannot be 

 pronounced either selfish or inhuman, if we open 

 wide the doors of tbe household and offer an equal 

 share in all the domestic benefits, to every man, who 

 is willing to throw in bis lot among us ; and give for 

 the common benefit, all tbe advantages of his talents, 

 sertice, education, knowdcdge and skill. This is true 



tionsof the country. 



The committee reported the following leEolutions ; 



1. Rcsoiccd, Thotlabor isthecrcator of wealth and 

 the conferrator of morale. 



2. That Government, established for tbe geheral 

 welfare, is bound to protect and encourage the whole- 

 some industry of its people in all its forins. 



3. That the true independence of an individual, a 

 family, or a nation, consists in its ability to supply its 

 own wants from within itself, in the exertion of that 

 ability, and above all, in keeping clear from debt. 



'I. That the interests of the whole people are one end 

 indivisible. Tbe eye caunot say unto the hand, I 

 have no need of you, nor the bead to tbe feet, J have 

 no need of you. Tbe poor are dependent on the rich ; 

 the rich equally dependent on the poor ; the laborer 

 on the employer, the employer equally upon the labor- 

 er ; and the interests of the agricultural, the mechan- 

 ical, and the commercial classes — of him whose capi- 

 tal is money, and of him whose capital is skill, and of 

 him whose tapital is knowledge, and of him Whose 

 capital is labor — ore the same and indissoluble. 



5. That on every principle of public good as well 

 as of equity, government's bound to cultivate and 

 strenethen the tics of mutual dependence nnjong its 

 ptcplc, so that the products of tbe skill of the one 

 may be exchanged for the products of the labor of the 

 other ; tiiat where such a mutual intercourse is secur- 

 ed against the disturbance of foreign influences, prices 

 and values wilLadjust themselves to a fixed and equi' 

 table standard, and ' live and let live' will be the uni- 

 versal rule. 



6. That to admit to an equal competition with our 

 own, the products of foreign labor, must tend to reduce 

 our laborers to the condition of those unfortUnatb 

 foreign operatives, whose oppression and degradatiotl 

 compel them to toil, not for the comforts of life, but 

 for a mean and bare subsistence. 



7. That a home market ought on every account tij 

 be encouraged, as most important to our agriculture, 

 and to oil our productive classes. 



8. That every article which we can produce our- 

 selves, should either be absolutely prohibited from 

 abroad, or admitted under such reatrictions as to dis- 

 courage its introduction, and to encourage its produc- 

 tion at home. 



9. That the tendency of a discriininating tariff; 

 founded upon this plain principle, is not in the end to 

 increase prices, but to equalize and reduce them ; and 

 even if its tendency were otherwise for a time or to a 

 degree, the man who lives upon bis money bos little 

 right to complain, since it is only reooonable that his 

 money should be expended for the benefit of those by 

 whose labor it has been earned, and by whose power 

 it is protected. 



10. That a trade with a foreign country to be free, 

 should be on terms of perfect reciprocity. 



11. That tbe restrictions upon our trade which ore 

 imposed by any foreign nation iniefusingto receive 

 the products of our industry in a fair and equitable ex- 

 change lor the products of her industry, con be prop- 

 erly met only by an absolute refusal to receive her 

 products at all, or by such countervailing and corres- 

 ponding restrictions on our port as shall serve to equal- 

 ize the trotfic. 



] 2. That holding the above principles os evident and 

 undeniable, we respectfully transmit them to our 

 Representatives in Congress, with a request that they 

 would so dispose of them in reference to any meas- 

 ures that may be taken on the tariff of duties the pres- 

 ent session, as shall best serve the views and wishes of 

 this meeting of the citizens of Rochester as thus ex- 

 pressed. 



spirit will have no other object than the production of 1 domestic economy and tiuc national economy; and 



O' Our partial deficiency in plates this month 

 will be compensated in our next number. Mr. 

 Sherwood's bull did not show his horns until too 

 late to bring him on the turf 



