DUTIES OF CITIZENSHIP. 



Mr. H. W. C01.1.INGWOOD, Editor ''The Rural New-Yorker.' 

 (''The Hope Farm Man/') 



I assume that it is the highest national ambition of every one 

 here that this country may remain a republic, in fact as well as 

 in name, but if this government is to remain a republic, two things 

 must be understood. There must ever be a class of free men so 

 situated in life that they can and will do independent and fearless 

 thinking and acting. Without such a class a republic is impossible. 

 We cannot have such a class unless we can in some way keep alive 

 the small, independent freeholder of land — the farmer. Thip 

 farmer cannot, and will not exercise his independent and fearless 

 freedom unless he can feel that his business is profitable and has 

 something of the poetry or sentiment of life in it. I wish to build 

 my argument on these propositions. Frankly, I do not see how 

 the republic can endure when our business and our liberties pass 

 into the hands of great corporations, and vast owners of land and 

 property through their political agents. The hope for it lies in 

 maintaining the home of the smaller freeholder. 



At the top of a hill in a New England country town lies the 

 village burying ground. It is a bleak and lonely place, yet an 

 honored and hallowed spot. In that graveyard stands a granite 

 stone with this inscription: 



JACOB MILLER. 

 God gave him new life, therefore we have brought him home. 



That man was the village pauper; the one lazy, shiftless 

 wretch who would not work. If you know anything of the New 

 England people and their character, you will understand how they 

 despised a pauper, and hallowed their dead. A prince could hardly 

 have won a place to lie beside them in their graveyard except 

 through some great moral sacrifice. How then did this pauper 

 come to be there? The war broke out, and Lincoln issued his call 

 for men. This poor, shiftless man felt for the instant something of 

 that thing which leads all men on to some great test of manhood, 

 without which they will not go. That man volunteered and went 

 to the front. He died as a soldier should, and the people at home 

 said that "God had given him new life," and so they brought him 

 and buried him beside their own. What they meant was that in 

 some miraculous way God had shown that man his sublime duty 

 as a citizen; something out of the ordinary routine of life, that 

 he might do his share to preserve this republic as a free govern- 

 ment. 



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