Various

“ It is not thus that slavery is to be mitigated or done away. Confine slavery within its present limits, and we may then hope to see it extinguished. We are young, and may outgrow it. There is a great body of active and enlightened philanthropy in the southern states; and it may yet devise means for its extinction. Build around it a circumvallation of freemen, and you render impotent its fearful threatenings. But give to it that principle of indefinite increase which our white population derives from the inexhaustible extent of our country, and you spread it over the face of the Union ”

“ Do not by your own act extend the evils you so eloquently regret. Give us that proof of the sincerity of your benevolence (the only one we can believe) that it is stronger than your sense of private interest. Prove to us that you are honestly bent upon exterminating slavery, and there are thousands who now stand aloof, that will join you with all their strength in any scheme that can effect it; thousands, whose daily prayer is, that the mercy of an all-just Providence may avert from our country the calamities of a servile war and a divided empire. ”

“ But we beseech you, as you are sincere in your plans of colonization, as you value the fair fame of our common country, as you regard the security and prosperity of all future generations—to stay the plague of slavery from spreading, and to give to the inhabitants of the Missouri a charter which shall not disgrace the great principles of our revolution, nor allow man to be the tyrant of his fellow man. ”

“ Agriculture is the noblest and best occupation of man; and in a country like the United States, where land is plenty and labour scarce, it will always be pushed to the extent which a profitable market demands. Yet if none worked but those who laboured in the field, society could not exist long. We should perish with cold and hunger. It is by an association of the arts that we live—and our comfort materially depends on their respective perfections. Only about one fifth of a population are fitted for agricultural labours, in general. ”

“ How many neat stone walls would take the place of rail fences, and remain as lasting monuments of the virtue of their owners—for industry and virtue are synonimous in agricultural life! How many ditches would be seen running through our swamps, and yielding or restoring to wholesome vegetation, those nurseries of wild, unprofitable, and poisonous plants; whose dark, damp shades are not only lost to agriculture ”

“ The privileged order of the southern states have, it is true, every temporal blessing they can desire, save that of security. But their hordes of slaves—a million of labourers, chained down to cheerless and incessant toil, shrouded in utter intellectual darkness, cut off from all that ennobles and adorns existence, stationary amidst the general march of improvement, and sold and driven about like herds of cattle;—is there not in this picture, retouch it and soften it as you may, subject for bitter regret? ”

“ Our government is emphatically a compact, originally between the people; and since then, between Congress as their representative, and the new members. It is binding on both sides, and the terms of admission are, that Congress approves of the constitution which the state has formed. Its power of rejection, it is true, is limited to certain points. But upon those points that power is absolute; and amongst them, without a shadow of doubt, is slavery. ”

“ There is no branch of industry that has not been indebted to them; and in all the most material, they have not only widened most magnificently the field of its exertions, but multiplied a thousand fold the amount of its productions. It is our improved steam-engine which now enables us to pay the interest of our debt, and to maintain the arduous struggle in which we are still engaged, with the skill and capital of countries less oppressed with taxation. ”

“ Are not their arms and limbs as capable of labour, and their bodies of fatigue? Where then is the inequality and the oppression? A citizen of a slave holding state, at home, and under his state laws, may be a petty monarch; and he is apt to fancy that he derives the power from an inherent birth-right. But out of his state, and from under its laws, he is an individual unit, a mere citizen of the United States; and can claim no privilege [9] which is not granted to every American, or which is opposed to the spirit and intent of the constitution. That constitution pays no respect to persons. ”

“ But to an American and a philanthropist, there are still higher objects to be gained by the circulation of such a paper, than the mere diffusion of agricultural intelligence or general literature. He lives under a system of government which is ideally perfect; and he sees it distorted by the vices and the passions of its subjects. He is the disciple of a religion which breathes good-will to mankind; and on whichsoever side he turns, are to be seen oppression, the darkness of ignorance, self-inflicted wretchedness, and amalgamating corruption. ”

“ To all these subjects will the Rural Magazine be watchful and alive; for the editors believe them to be subjects of the deepest interest, and having relation to our highest duties. He who tills his field, or pursues his occupation with diligence and skill, is a deserving and honourable citizen. He who, in addition to this, cultivates his mind, and stores it with useful and ornamental knowledge, raises himself in the scale of being, and adds to his capacities both for happiness and usefulness. ”

“ The man who exchanges wheat for ear-rings, unless those rings are manufactured in his country, wastes to the country the whole amount of the intrinsic value of the wheat over that of the ear-rings, which latter is only that of the metal composing them. A nation cannot be independent, if it looks to another for necessaries—it cannot be rich, if it exchanges necessaries for luxuries. ”

“ It has not here the solemn shades of forests, the majestic course of rivers, the mountains wrapped in eternal frosts, that excite our emotion.—A few drops of vegetable juice recal to our minds all the powerfulness and fecundity of nature. On the barren flank of rock grows a tree with coriaceous and dry leaves. ”

“ We seem to see the family of a shepherd, who distributes the milk to his flock.
"I have described the sensation which the cow tree awakens in the mind of the traveller, at the first view. In examining the physical properties of animal and vegetable products, science displays them as closely linked together; but it strips them of what is marvellous, and perhaps also a part of their charms, of what excited our astonishment.—Nothing appears insolated; the chemical principles that were believed to be peculiar to animals are found in plants; a common chain links together all organic nature." ”

“ Are not the lands open to all, and disposed of at public sale? They can only be made valuable, it is true, by incessant labour, under severe privations. But this the hardy yeomanry of the eastern and middle states are willing to endure for the sake of independence and an establishment for their families. We see them accordingly in the van of our empire, subduing the forest and filling the wilderness with the busy sounds of industry and contentment. ”

“ With the pecuniary means which his industry has accumulated, he should increase his own intelligence, and confer upon his children the benefits of substantial education. I do not admit as truth, what is frequently asserted, that the best examples of morality and virtue are to be met with in the country; for whereever the improvement of the mind is neglected, those ennobling qualities will be rarely found. It is idle to suppose that our intellectual capacities will yield fruits which dignify and adorn our nature, if they be solely devoted to increase our worldly possessions. ”

“ The Rural Magazine will not only be a repository for articles of miscellaneous interest, but peculiarly so for every thing connected with agriculture, and a country residence. It is to rural scenes, and rural innocence, and rural employments, that man is principally indebted for many of those blessings and enjoyments, which impart a charm to human existence, and lighten its load of cares and sorrows. ”

“ The home market, even to the most commercial nations, is of many times the amount of the foreign one. The former is not easily effected, except by a self-mistaken policy; but the latter is as capricious as the winds, and beyond our control. Speculation does not create value—the purchase and sale of a million's worth of goods does not improve their quality or add to their quantity, to the amount of a cent. A change of commodities between different countries, may increase their value to the extent of the labour expended in transporting them ”

“ Governments were made for the good of the people, not the people for governments; and their object fails when private happiness ceases to be respected. Emancipation from political tyranny, without the means of preserving personal liberty, is a nullity. The gift of life without the means of living, is destitute of value. ”

“ I do not intend to meddle much, if at all, with your system of agriculture, though I conceive it quite possible for a man who has been born and educated in a city, to furnish important hints for the improvement of rural affairs. My purpose is to interest your attention with subjects which may tend to enlarge and elevate your minds. It is a lamentable fact, that too little regard [6] is paid to intellectual cultivation, among those who till the earth. ”

“ It is to the genius of one man too that all this is mainly owing; and certainly no man ever before bestowed such a gift on his kind. The blessing is not only universal, but unbounded; and the fabled inventors of the plough and the loom, who were deified by the erring gratitude of their rude contemporaries, conferred less important benefits on mankind than the inventor of our present steam-engine. ”

“ If 15 tons to the acre could be usually obtained of this species of gourd, we should be induced to pronounce the crop, in point of profit and use, unrivalled as a preparative for a crop of winter grain. The crop would be found among those which are least expensive in seed, in culture and in gathering; none would occasion less exhaustion of soil, nor require less for manure, as a little gypsum to the hills, or drills, will be found to have a powerful effect on its growth, but of its more complete cultivation we shall presently speak. ”

“ From Norfolk our voyage to Baltimore surpassed all my former ideas of rapidity. We passed up to Baltimore in so short a space of time, and in such a steam-boat, that I dread your incredulity were I to give you particulars. Let it suffice that but a few hours brought us to Baltimore, reputed to be in commercial importance the fourth city in the Union. You know it was my first object to visit the respectable gentlemen in this place to to whom I have letters, and most of whom have at one time or another done business with our house. ”

“ Their solemn declaration to the world, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," had otherwise been the worst of mockeries. ”

“ It forms a perpetual and unerring standard by which to judge of principles and policy; and whatever measures are found wanting in its scale, may safely be pronounced to be unwise and unsound. The flux and change of opinions and interests, the perpetual encroachments of wealth and power, the decay of old prejudices and jealousies, and the rise of new ones, wear away continually the old landmarks, and imperceptibly give to our institutions a new aspect and new bearings. ”

“ He is equally distinguished for speed and bottom. He runs rapidly, and for a long time; rivalling, in this respect, all that we have heard of the English hunting horses. In other respects—in the docility of his nature, in his capacity to sustain hunger and hardship, in his powers to provide food for himself and his master, he is wholly unrivalled. He is readily trained to the business of his master's life, that of hunting, and pursues the game with all the keenness of the dog, and with equal sagacity and more success. ”

“ But when he adds to this industry, and to these talents and accomplishments, the benevolence of a Christian philanthropist, and renders them subservient to the welfare of his species, he attains to the highest dignity of his nature, and fulfils all the obligations which devolve on him as a citizen and a man. ”

“ The sudden introduction of less than 500,000 persons, would leave us no surplus of present products of food for men. But it is a demand for this surplus, no matter how created, that assesses the value of the whole product. Such products, let the fact be recollected, were at as high prices during the late war, when there was very little export of them, as they are now, the difference in the value of our circulating medium being also considered. ”

“ The mid-day beams of the sun are not so fierce on the hills or vales of America, as on the plains of Asia, where our first parents were doomed to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow. But they are still fierce enough to make the Plough Boy feel their enervating effects, and to impress upon his physical as well as mental frame the necessity and importance of sowing his seed in the morning, and of extending to it the vigilance of his hand in the evening. ”

“ In contemplating the dignity and utility which are combined in the occupations of an American husbandman, in estimating the extent of influence which belongs to his character, and regarding his elevated independence, I have long since been led to the conclusion, that the Farmers of the soil form the basis of the nation's strength, and ought largely to contribute to its ornament. ”

“ The plough turns up from the soil no nourishment for the mind, neither do the scythe and sickle prostrate the vices of the heart.
Abstractedly, therefore, a man may be as destitute of good principles who lives amidst rural scenes, as he whose pursuits confine him to the busy haunts and contagious influences of the multitude. ”

“ He asked the reason.—It was the establishment of steam-boats which had destroyed the lines of stages, and driven off the persons and horses that they had given employment to, and of course the market they created, which hitherto took off all the surplus products of the neighbourhood, had ceased to be. A thousand instances of this sort might be noted to prove that a ready market is the prosperity of a neighbourhood, country, state, or nation. ”

“ Are the slave holders of the south a privileged order, that these labours would demean them? Are they oppressed by being placed on an equality with their brethren of the north, who leave behind them all the artificial distinctions and luxurious indulgences of society? ”

“ It has increased indefinitely the mass of human comforts and enjoyments, and rendered cheap and accessible all over the world the materials of wealth and prosperity. It has armed the feeble hand of man, in short, with a power to which no limits can be assigned, completed the dominion of mind over the most refractory qualities of matter, and laid a sure foundation for all those future miracles of mechanic power, which are to aid and reward the labours of after generations. ”

“ Yet from the same quarter do we hear of splendid schemes for colonization and emancipation, for eradicating slavery, and pouring the light of civilization and religion upon ravaged and benighted Africa. Many of the most conspicuous actors in this great scheme of benevolence, are the men who have exerted all their talents upon the floor of Congress to increase the evils over which in another place they mourn ”