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SIMBON FRANCIS, Epitob. 



BAHiHACBDB A BAKER, Pcbubhxbs. 



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Art'! *i "-'^-s 



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Ameriean Farmers. 



If it is true, as we have stated before, and 

 as w« believe every man well re%dJ*»^f^ *'*^ 

 tory of modern civiH*»«*~ '^^^ «^3mit, that 

 the cultiw^«i of *be soU have nowhere yet 

 neia tnat bigh position of social and civil 

 inflaence, which the best good of the-race 

 requires thi»t thej should, it is worth while 

 to inquire for the cause of so important a 

 failure. Why have they not? 



Leaving other countries, we will confine 

 the inquiry to our own. Here are compar- 

 atively few monopolies. We have few 

 vested rights, by which to turn the rewkrds 

 of labor into coflFers of another. No ancient 

 king has erected a barrier about New York, 

 Philadelphia, New Orleans, as around Paris, 

 and decreed that for all coming time the 

 farmer, who carries his produce through its 

 gates, may have for it half of what the con- 

 sumer pays, while the city shall have the 

 balance. No divine right is claimed for op- 

 pressing the ptoducing classes. The gov- 

 ernment has always been administered as 

 the farmers wished, or at least might have 

 been, had they been united and spoken out, 

 for they have always been in majority. 

 Either they have always had their way, or, 

 if they have not, it has been their own fault. 



Our own views are well known; — we be- 

 lieve that everybody else has been served 

 first, that the farmer's interest has been left 

 to the last, and is not reached yet. We 

 begin to doubt whether it ever will be. 

 Certainly it will not, unless the farmers of 

 the country assume a more united and a 

 more formidable position than they have yet 

 done. This very winter, if a remodeling 

 of the tariff were undertaken, we suppose 

 that a British ironmonger residing in New 



York would gain more consideration with 

 Congress than all the fanners in «*« »~— * 

 •»€b;*«*»^«^ ''•~"'*— *TcinfiijM4<j woqld be sung 

 through at least' three ocra!ve8~ aiul into a 



fourth, till it should attain so high a squeak 

 aa to drown more decent voi(?». "We 

 should hear of ships rotting at the wharves, 

 of sailors robbing hen-roosts, and of national 

 ships unmanned for the want of a mercantile 

 seaman's apprenticeship, till we should for- 

 get whether American formers should have 

 the feeding of the men who make iron for 

 their carts and ploughs, or whether British 

 ore and coal, or American, should be used in 

 the manufacture. '^ ^■^'^:'-^'^i:p'.'--i0--<' l 



But all this does not reach the difficulty. 

 The question is, why have not American 

 farmers attained a high place of influence 

 and power? Why do they, numerous as 

 they are, as really the supporters of the 

 government as the ass is of the master who 

 rides him, stand aside, with hats under their 

 arms, like underlings, and see every other 

 intei^t served before theirs? That it is so, 

 everj one can see. But why is it so; and 

 by what means is it to be otherwise? Let 

 us lo^kat these two questions. ^^ 



If we look back to the commencement of 

 farm^g operations in this country, we shall 

 find tiiat the early farmers had most of them 

 been farmers in England before coming here; 

 not \owever of their own land, not the 

 owneit of their own houses, but farmers of 

 anotter's land, and dwellers in another's 

 cotta^, liable to be turned out if they did 

 notd^ean themselves meekly^ They were 

 taughj by church and state that there is a 

 wide (jifEerence between the owner and the 

 tenan^ They might respect themselves as 

 competed with their fellow laborers, but not 



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