in every rank and condition of society. They are not | proper employment of the slave. It is best adapted to confined to any one locality, nor to any one pursuit. his physical constitution, it best accords with his feelBut those who own the country, are most apt to love it; ings and habits, and it affords the largest share of those those whose interests and occupations chain them to comforts and indulgences, which are the proper reliefs the soil, are most ready to defend it. "The shocks of of the necessary hardships of his condition. A comcorn," said Xenophon, "inspire those who raise them mercial or manufacturing people never will be slave with courage to defend them; the sight of them in the owners, because they never can profitably employ that fields, is as a prize exhibited in the middle of the thea- kind of labor to any considerable extent. Wherever tre to crown the conqueror." Men so circumstanced, African slavery exists in a large class of the population, are not "light to run away." They are themselves the agriculture must of necessity be the chief occupation country, and their attachment to it is as strong as their and the predominant interest. own self-love. While, therefore, patriotism may be found in every class and every pursuit of life, it is in a peculiar degree the characteristic of the owners and cultivators of the soil.

Patriotism, however, although it is the highest, is not the only virtue, to which the agricultural state is favorable. The independence of that life, its case, its abundance, its quiet uniformity, its retirement, and its comparative exemption from those temptations which disturb the balance of our minds, and call our worst passions into play, all point it out as the best school both of public and private virtues. The love of display, the rivalry of fashion, the ostentatiousness of wealth and the strifes of ambition, will exist, in greater or less degree, in every form and condition of society. But these turbulent passions do not find their proper theatre amid the shades of rural retirement; they do not readily enter the bosoms of men, who are inspired, alike by their position and their pursuits, with a love of quietness and peace.

Do I attach too much importance to this view of the subject? Let the history of free governments, throughout the world, answer the question. In no one of them can the causes of decay be traced to the agricultural class. In states where other occupations constituted the highest interest, and gave employment to the greatest number of the people, there are many melancholy examples of rapid departure from their original free principles, and of the exercise of the straightest despotism under those forms, upon which the people vainly relied for the security of public liberty. But the cultivator of the soil has no motive to make war upon his government, nor to overturn or pervert the institu tions under which he lives. Too independent to be bought, too quiet to be urged into faction, and too happy in his condition to be desirous of change, he is neither ambitious himself, nor a fit instrument of the ambition of others. He is the best conservator of pub. lic liberty, because he owes to that liberty much more than any other man.

It may then be noted as among the happy influen- As public virtue is the basis upon which republican ces of domestic slavery, as it exists among ourselves, government rests, public intelligence and information that it tends to keep us, as we now are, an agricultural are its best props and supports. I do not assert that people. The farm is the proper position of the slave. there is any thing in domestic slavery calculated to inIt is true that recent experience has shown that slave crease the intelligence of the whites, nor do I consider labor may be profitably employed in manufactures that institution favorable to the general diffusion of and in the various mechanic arts; but the number knowledge. On the contrary, it is probable that the which can be so employed, must be comparatively in- poorer classes of the people in slave-holding states, considerable. The very physical structure of the Afri- will in general be deficient in the elements of educa can, renders it impossible to confine any great number tion. The whites who alone are educated, rarely of them together, in the close atmosphere of a manu- amount to more than a bare majority of the entire factory, without certain destruction to their health. population; and as their pursuit is agriculture, they are And even if this were not so, the demand for such necessarily much dispersed in their positions. Hence labor must always be too limited to give employment the establishment of primary schools among them, is to more than a very small proportion of the slave more difficult than in countries more thickly settled, population in countries where that population is large and where every child is a proper subject for education. enough to give character to the institution. Not so There may be something too, in the habits and pur with agriculture. Its demands for labor are not easily suits of the slave owner, calculated to make him less supplied. In no one state of our Union, has there been, patient of the labor of study, and less anxious for the at any time, a redundancy of slave labor; on the con- acquisition of knowledge, than those to whom know. trary, in all of them large portions of their soil have ledge, in a certain degree, is a necessary means of subsisbeen left uncultivated and profitless, for want of that tence. But this reasoning does not apply to that more labor. It has, it is true, often been misapplied, and for extended and perfect education which fits men for pubthat reason has become unprofitable and apparently re-lic station, and prepares them for the higher duties of dundant. But there never was a time when the soil of the citizen. Only a few such men arise in any age, any one of the southern states would not have afforded and only a few are necessary for the wise ordering of useful employment to more slaves than it contained, if that employment had been judiciously directed. In proportion as slave labor increases, when properly applied, both production and consumption increase also; so that we may venture to affirm, that slave labor will never superabound until our population shall become so great and our soil so fertile that every "rood of earth" will "maintain its man." This then, is the

public affairs and for the safety and prosperity of nations. To the formation of such characters domestic slavery is peculiarly favorable. It removes from the student the necessity of personal labor, and gives him time for study; it relieves him from the sordid and distracting cares which, under different systems, are so apt to chill his hopes and discourage his exertions. Hence the mind is less trammeled by forms, and is more inde

necessary to provide subsistence, clothing, and all the materiel of war. In countries where slavery does not prevail, and where every man expects to provide for the comfort of himself and his family by his own exertions alone, few can be called to the field, without pro

where all these labors are performed by slaves, almost the entire free population may be employed in war, because one freeman may superintend and direct the

slave-holding state, will, in general, be able to call as many of her people to the field, as will a state having no slaves and only an equal population. So far as history instructs us upon the subject, those republics which have been most distinguished for their power, both in defensive and aggressive war, were, without exception, holders of slaves. Such nations too, are, as I have already remarked, necessarily agricultural. Their own soil generally yields them food, clothing, and whatever else is required to furnish forth an army and maintain it in the field. With them commerce and the

pendent and free to exert its powers. The school room | mechanic trades, to manage the exchanges of commerce, is not the only means, nor even the best means of edu- and to occupy themselves in all those pursuits which are cation. He who is merely taught jurare in vorba magistri, may enjoy the reputation of having passed through the schools, but he does not deserve the character of an educated man. Our northern youth pass their leisure hours, for the most part, either in schools or in listening to itinerant lecturers, who give them the mere sur-ducing distress and want at home. But in countries face of a thousand subjects without imparting to them any solid information upon any. While they are thus employed in making themselves masters of the ideas of others, the southern youth are freely thinking for them-labor of fifty slaves. It is probable, therefore, that a selves and forming ideas of their own. It is probably owing to this circumstance, that the citizens of our slave-holding states, to whatever quarter they remove, are apt to become prominent in politics, and to be distinguished for the freedom and liberality of their opinions. The same thing has been remarked of the slaveholding republics of antiquity. Chateaubriand, a high authority in matters of this sort, expresses himself thus: "But if I may be allowed to say what I think, in my opinion this system of slavery was one of the causes of the superiority of the great men of Athens and Rome, over those of modern times. It is certain that you can-arts are a secondary consideration, and of course they not exercise all the faculties of the mind, except when you are relieved from the material cares of life; and you are not wholly relieved from these cares, but in countries where the arts, trades and domestic occupations are relinquished to slaves." The great man is not formed by books alone. He must have leisure to think as well as leisure to study; his mind must be free from the distractions and perplexities which attend the necessity of daily labor for daily bread; his feelings must be at ease, and his ideas unconfined, and free to range where they will. Such is the condition of the slave owner; and whether it make him more learned or not, it would be contrary to Nature, if it did not give him a more liberal caste of character, more elevated principles, a wider expansion of thought, a deeper and more fervent love, and a juster estimate of that liberty by which he is so highly distinguished.

are independent of those foreign connexions upon which nations differently situated are compelled to rely. A people whose own soil supplies them with all the requisite means of defence, will rarely yield even to a superior power, so long as they shall continue to be animated with a due love of their independence and freedom. Such a people, whether they be owners of slaves or not, have much more to fear from themselves than from an invading enemy. The gold of Philip of Macedon, effected much more than his arms. A nation with even comparatively feeble resources, will generally be able to repel invasion so long as it is true to itself.

But it is not from the power of the conqueror that free nations have most to dread. Their own follies and vices are their worst enemy. Of these follies, the love of conquest is at once the most common and the most fatal. History is full of examples of republics which There are only two causes of the decline and over- have owed their overthrow principally to this cause. throw of free governments; they fall victims either to Abuses, corruptions, oppressions, and the exercise of the power of a conqueror, or to the corruptions of their arbitrary power, necessarily follow in the path of war. own people. Usurpation, in the ordinary acceptation And to a republic so engaged, success is as fatal as deof the term, has no agency in the matter. No one man feat. The last thing which she ought to desire, is an can subdue the liberties of an entire people, without extended territory. Free government can scarcely be their consent. Neither Cæsar, Cromwell, nor Bona-strong enough to be duly felt in the extremities of a parte, was an usurper. It is true that each of them vast dominion. Authority, like a circle in the water, became absolute in his own country, but this was only becomes more and more indistinct and faint the farther when the people had created for themselves the neces- it is extended. Government, weakened by its very sity for a master, and had voluntarily put the sceptre greatness, becomes incapable of controlling its own into his hands. The conqueror is the only real usurper. agents. The reins of discipline are relaxed; licenFree governments have often yielded to conquest, but tiousness takes the place of liberty; disorders ensue; not often until they have first yielded to corruptions at anarchy prevails, and at last, the despot is called in to home. Indeed, they have generally been successful, protect the people against themselves. I think it is true, not only in repelling invasion, but in adding the terri- at least of military republics whose territories have been tories of conquered nations to their own. This, how-large, that the first indications of their decline have ever, was only while they maintained the purity of their principles, for they began to be weak as soon as they began to be corrupt. Domestic slavery, if it adds nothing to their strength in war, takes nothing from their power of resistance. No country ever sends its entire population to the field. A portion must always be left at home, to cultivate the soil, to work in the

been seen in the provinces and distant governments,

Slave-holding republics are peculiarly secure from the dangers of this fatal folly. Aggressive war is contrary to the genius of agriculture. The husbandman does not readily abandon the ploughshare for the sword. Nothing short of a strong necessity, such as the defence of his country, or the vindication of his rights,

can drive him to arms. Satisfied with his own condi- and with such, even liberty itself has its price. From tion, he rarely desires to change it; conscious of the this deep sin of republics, slave-holding and agricul blessings which surround him, and properly appre-tural nations are comparatively free. That equality of ciating them, he has no motive to invade the rights of rank of which I have already spoken, presents few of others. He is too wise to put the peace, the security, the usual inducements to extravagance and ostentation; the independence and the comfort of his fireside, upon and, indeed, it is impossible for these to prevail to any the uncertain issues of war. Where the chief occupa- considerable extent, except where wealth abounds. tion of a country is agriculture, foreign war can present The moderate estates of an agricultural people do not no adequate motive for withdrawing from the cultiva-admit of a high degree of luxury, and both their habits tion of the soil, either the labor itself or the skill which and their pursuits teach them to avoid it. Luxury directs it. It rarely happens that such countries con- makes its first lodgment in large cities. It is there tain any large portion of that loose and idle population chiefly and almost exclusively that redundant fortunes out of which alone a free government could hope to are found, and there alone are assembled, in irresistible form an army of invasion. And to that better class numbers and force, all those seductive pleasures which who live in comparative comfort, home, however hum-cheat the imagination and betray the heart. From the ble its enjoyments, possesses far more charms than the labor, the servitude, the dangers and the privations of the camp. The military adventurer is generally the creature of idleness, poverty, vice and misery; he is not often found amid the abundance and comfort of rural life.

cities these corruptions spread throughout the country, slowly it is true, but surely; and whenever they do so, public virtue is overcome, public spirit is broken and subdued, and public strength is paralized and destroyed. It is fortunate for an agricultural people that their habits and pursuits are unfavorable to the establishment of large cities. I do not speak of those cities of moderate size, which are necessary as marts for the produce of the country, and which that produce will always, under proper systems, invite into existence. From these, little danger to public morals is to be apprehended. I allude to those swollen capitals which engross the trade, absorb the wealth, and control the industry of nations. These are the peculiar abodes of

Aggressive war is forbidden by the very nature of slave population. The slave requires the continual presence of the master, both to control and to protect him. Nor would it be at all times safe to withdraw from a slave-holding country any considerable portion of its military force. It is true, the history of our revolutionary war attests the general fidelity of our slaves in the presence of an invading enemy. Indeed, whatever their tempers may be, they are least formi-luxury, the fruitful mothers of public and private vices, dable and most easily checked and controlled when the country is armed and its military power organized and in the field. A very small squadron of disciplined troops, prepared to march promptly and rapidly to any point of danger, would be sufficient to put down the best planned servile insurrection and to keep the slave population of a whole country in awe and subjection. An equal degree of security could not be reasonably expected in the absence of the military power of the country. Even if the opportunity should not be used for the purpose of open resistance and rebellion, such a condition of things could scarcely fail to relax discipline, to encourage disobedience, idleness and disorder, and thus to render the slave less valuable as a laborer. A slave-holding country, therefore, has the double motive of safety and of interest, not to desire foreign conquest and to abstain from aggressive war.

I am aware that history presents examples of slaveholding republics, who have not always acted upon these maxims; but the same examples are proofs that the maxims are sound, and that a departure from them is sure to be fatal to liberty. We should be unwise indeed, if we could not profit by the experience of other countries, so strongly enforcing the suggestions of our own interest and safety.

The great cause, however, of the overthrow of free governments, ever has been and ever will be the corruptions of their own people. An increase of wealth is the chief source of these corruptions. Wealth naturally leads to luxury, and luxury produces effeminacy, weakness and vice. The necessary restraints of true liberty are odious to the love of self-indulgence. A luxurious people are always corrupt and venal. The cutting reproach of Jugurtha was not applicable to Rome alone. Every luxurious nation is a venal nation,

the nurseries of sedition, riot and disorder, and the worst enemies of rational, regulated liberty. It is rare that cities of this sort arise in slave-holding and agricultural countries. In them, the farm is the station of profit, usefulness, influence and dignity. The country does not look to the town for its examples, nor borrow from it either its morals or its manners. It may be received as an infallible indication of the decline of republican simplicity, that the city is looked to as the retreat of the wealthy. This never happens until the country is prepared to take on new manners and a new character.

It is the natural tendency of liberty to run into extremes. Communities that are free to govern themselves, are always prone to govern too much. Men seem to forget that they possess power, unless they are in the constant exercise of it. All that is evil in their condition, whatever disappoints their hopes or embarrasses their exertions or defeats their plans, is apt to be laid to the government and laws; and conscious that those laws are subject to their will, they are constantly devising new expedients for relief. The necessary consequence is, that they acquire the habit of depending too much upon the government and too little upon themselves. The great and rival interests of society are engaged in a constant struggle for the control of public legislation, as the surest means of advancing their own success. This rivalry would probably be favorable to liberty, if a proper balance could be preserved between the different interests. But it cannot be long preserved; it would be as reasonable to expect a continued equality in the strength of men. The strongest will acquire an ascendancy, and the weakest must yield to its power. This is a condition of things absolutely inconsistent with true liberty. The worst

of all despotisms is that which operates through the | Yet, from whatever cause they proceed, they indicate forms of free government. Its oppressions are in exact either great corruption in the people or a wide deparproportion to the strongest and worst of our passions; ture from the pure principles of justice and equality in and there is no relief from them except in revolution, the government. I know not what is better calculated because the oppressor is irresponsible, and there is no to produce such a state of things than those fluctuations power to which the oppressed can appeal. The law is to which the laws are always subject from the alternate the oppressor, and those who make the law have the successes of rival and contending interests, and the conhighest interest to render its burthens as heavy and sequent disgusts and resentments of the defeated party. galling as can be borne. The chain which thus binds a Men do not feel that either their rights or their interests large portion of a people who claim to be free, must are secure, where the laws which profess to protect either be kept together by open and undisguised force, them are liable to perpetual changes, and to be moulded or else it will, at some time or other, be broken by vio- only to suit the particular interest which may happen lence and revolution. It appears to me that this view for the time to be predominant. They soon cease to of the subject has not generally been duly considered. respect laws which are not founded in any general Free government, which depends on the will of the principle, and which may exist only for an hour; and people, cannot be more stable than that will itself. Of the government itself, with all its institutions, naturally course, that condition of society is most favorable to sinks into contempt and imbecility. It is therefore of liberty, in which the interests of the different orders the utmost importance that the laws should not only be are the most identical, their habits the most uniform, just and equal, but that they should be as uniform and and their pursuits the most fixed and permanent. Such stable as the condition of the country will allow. To this is the character of our slave-holding communities. stability, domestic slavery with its inseparable incidents, We are all cultivators of the soil, and all owners of necessarily contributes in a high degree, because that slaves. Whatever difference there may be in our occu-institution is itself stable, permanent, and so engrossing, pations, there are few among us whose largest interest is not land and negroes. Thus the identity of our interests insures equality in the laws; the permanency of our interests insures stability in the laws, and the uniformity of our manners and occupations saves us from all those jealousies and discontents which lead to disorder and outrage. A population homogeneous in character, in interests and pursuits, is best suited to free institutions, because the laws necessarily operate alike on all; and all, having the same stake in the government, are alike interested to support it. Men do not abandon their liberties without some motive stronger than the love of liberty; and what stronger motive can there be with men, who find in liberty itself the The remarks which I have made, apply with peculiar best protection of all their rights, the best encourage-force to the exercise of the taxing power. There is no ment for their industry, and the best security for their subject upon which the public mind is more sensitive happiness.

as to give character to all others. Our reasoning upon this subject is confirmed by examples. The northern states have much more frequently changed their constitutions of government than the southern. Virginia lived fifty-four years under the same constitution, and her people, during all that time, were remarkable for their attachment to their government, for their obedience to the laws, and for the contented, quiet and good order of their conduct. It is to be regretted that so wise an example was not more generally followed; and she herself has the greatest cause to regret, that she did not continue to present that example through all succeeding years, to this time.

than it is upon this. All history proves (and the history of our own country, not less than that of others,) that unequal taxation is an unfailing source of popular discontent and resistance. A slave-holding community is much less liable to inequality in this respect than any other. As land and negroes constitute much the

I have said that the nature of our institutions is calculated to insure stability in the laws. This is a much more important safeguard of free institutions than may be generally supposed. Instability in the laws leads to the insecurity of rights, and the insecurity of rights brings the laws into contempt. A mutable and unset-largest part of the property of the country, they must tled code soon loses the respect of the people, and ceases to be a protection for any right, because it ceases to possess any power. A want of respect for the laws is one of the surest indications of the decline of liberty. I do not speak of those occasional outbreakings of popular fury, which set all law and all government at defiance. These are the mere results of temporary excitement, and are liable to occur among all people, whatever be their form of government. I speak of that disregard of the laws which is seen in the frequent impunity of crime, in the defiance of the public authorities, and in the bold assumption of juries to set the law aside, in favor of their prejudices, their passions, their interests or their caprices. These things always proceed from a depraved state of public morals, where the laws are not objectionable; but they also occur, even in the purest communities, where the laws are regarded as unjust and oppressive. It is a difficult thing to enforce an unpopular law among a free people.

of course, bear much the largest share of the expenses of government; and as these are owned by all classes and almost by every individual, no one can complain that he is unequally taxed. This is not equally true, if it be true at all, of countries in which slavery does not exist. Society in such countries is necessarily divided into a great variety of classes, each having, or believing that it has, its peculiar interests; and among these classes there is a continual strife to throw the burthens of government from themselves upon others. The successful classes are too apt to push their advantage to an imprudent excess, and the unsuccessful classes are discontented and ready to regard their government as their enemy. This has, not unfrequently, been the cause of the overthrow of government. But revolutions thus commenced, rarely result in favor of liberty. Even if successful, the angry passions which cause them are inconsistent with those temperate counsels by which alone liberty can be established or main

tained; and if unsuccessful, the attempt serves only to are too apt to compare our condition with that of the confirm the power which it could not overthrow.

ranks who are above, instead of that of the ranks who are below us. Hence, where the differences in point of wealth between different classes are very great and striking, there are few who do not consider themselves poor, and who would not hope to be benefited by a general commingling of property. Besides, there are never wanting those among the more wealthy who are ready to inflame the discontents of the inferior classes, in order to make them the instruments of their ambition. The middle class are the true conservators of public liberty. They have neither cause for jealousy nor motive for discontent; they have every thing to lose and nothing to gain by change. Whilst Rome limited the landed possessions of one man to seven acres, she was free, virtuous and powerful; when she

rious and effeminate; and when even this restriction was disregarded, and the lands of the country were engrossed by the wealthy, that circumstance accelerated and rendered inevitable the ruin of the republic. In all attempts upon public liberty the highest and the lowest orders are natural allies. The one is urged on by ambition and the other by indigence and suffering. The middle class can affiliate with neither, for it is indifferent to the objects of the one and above the motives of the other. The extremes only unite, and the intermediate class who alone are true lovers of liberty, are sure to be crushed between them. But their union, although fatal to liberty, is not less certainly fatal to themselves. The wealthy demagogue who allures the indigent by the hope of plunder, is apt to be himself the first victim. It is much easier to excite the storm of popular passions, than either to allay or to direct it. I think it is no bold prediction to say, that if the time shall ever arrive-and it will arrive-when labor cannot find its proper reward in any of our states, and when a large portion of the people, suffering with want, cannot look to other regions for relief, the rights of property will no longer be respected. It is in vain to talk of the blessings of liberty to those who are galled with the servitude of their own necessities. You cannot persuade men to think that the law which allows them to starve is a holy thing. With the right of property, perishes every other right. The social condition rests only upon that, and when that is destroyed, the whole fabric falls into ruin.

But the great danger which liberty has to fear in the United States, is to be found in that agrarian spirit which strikes at all that is above it, and spares nothing that is good or great in the institutions of society. This deformed offspring of popular discontents and vices, has too often been at once the reproach and the bane of free governments. It does not, it is true, belong peculiarly to them, but it is in them only that it has scope for action. The love of distinction is natural to man, and whatever confers it is an object of desire and of envy. Here, in the United States, the distinctions of birth and family do not prevail; and public office, which is generally held only for short periods-which supposes the incumbent to be the servant and not the master of the people-which is attended with no trap-extended it to five hundred acres, she began to be luxupings nor insignia, to attract the public gaze, and which is generally laden with duties and responsibilities very disproportioned to its compensations-confers but little honor and possesses but few attractions. Wealth alone, (except that commanding order of genius which elevates its possessor conspicuously above other men, and which very few possess,) can confer any substantial distinction in the United States; and hence wealth is the object of universal desire, and the end which all ambition proposes to itself. It has been often remarked that avarice is the strongest feature in the American character. It could not well be otherwise, for where wealth alone can give us any real advantage over others, it is natural that it should be sought as the greatest carthly good; and it is equally natural that he who possesses it should be viewed with envy, jealousy and ill-will. The wealthy individual may, by an inoffensive and useful life, escape this fate; but the wealthy, as a class, never can escape it. Hitherto we can scarcely be said to have had any such class in the United States. So infinite are the resources of our country, and so various our modes of industry, that abundance and independence have every where prevailed. Besides, our public lands have held out a continual invitation to all those who have found it difficult to prosper in the old states. In the fertile regions of the west, the poor become rich in a day, as thousands upon thousands of the needy and destitute are proving every year. This continual drain of the very poor, tends to preserve a comparative equality among those who remain; a circumstance to which the non-slaveholding states, who It would be a dangerous self-delusion in us, to sup. have redundant populations, owe much of the tran-pose that there is any thing in our forms of government, quillity they have enjoyed. But this state of things cannot exist forever. The time will come when this outlet will be closed, and when our people, greatly increased in numbers and confined within their ancient limits, will press inconveniently upon one another. Then, if not before, the distinction of rich and poor will be clearly established; it will be both seen and felt. The usual jealousies of the one class and the consequent fears of the other will then commence, and from that moment the rights of property will be in danger. Property, which is protected only by the law, is always at the mercy of those who make the law. It will probably be very long before an actual majority of very poor will be found in any one of our states; but it is not necessary that this should be the case, in order to call the agrarian principle into action. We

or in the character of our people, to exempt us from this common danger of all republics. It has its source in the human heart, and that is very much the same at all times, in all places, and in all conditions of the social state. If we would escape it, we must remove the causes which excite it to action; and this is effèctually done by the institution of negro slavery.

I have already remarked upon the equality which prevails among the whites, in our slave-holding states, but I then spoke only of the equality of rank. It is the equality of wealth only, which belongs to the present inquiry. And this is important-I am tempted to say, important above all things-in a free government. "Crimes spring up only from the extremes of indigence and opulence. Overgrown estates destroy the spirit of patriotism in those who have every thing and those who