That the slave-trade, with its accompanying violation of the rights of parents and children, and with its natural tendency towards a total forgetfulness of the sanctity of the marriage tie, has its origin in the exhaustion of the land, there can be no doubt. That that, in its turn, has its origin in the necessity for a dependence on distant markets, is quite as certain. The man who must go to a distance with his products, cannot raise potatoes, hay, or turnips. He must raise the less bulky articles, wheat or cotton-taking from his land all the elements of which they are composed, and then abandoning it.* Forced, thus, to stake his existence on the success of a single crop, he finds himself wholly deprived of the power of associating with his fellowman, for purposes of drainage, or for in any manner securing himself against the risks attendant upon changes of the weather. Being himself but the slave of nature, it is as a necessary consequence that the laborer is everywhere the slave of his fellow-man.

The more the planter is forced to depend upon foreign markets, the greater must be the tendency to decline of quantity, and diminution in the price of what is produced-and the greater that towards exhaustion of the soil, expulsion of the people, and further diminution in the rapidity of circulation.

The state of facts above presented in reference to the Southern States is generally true throughout the Union. At the commencement of the century, their total population was 5,300,000-giving 6.47 per square mile. Half a century later, their numbers had quadrupled-having risen to 23,190,000. The territory, however, having increased almost in like proportion, the density of population was but little changed-standing at only 7.90 per mile. In the first period, the territory occupied extended but little beyond the Allegheny ridge-the territory

* Western New York has probably the best wheat lands of the world; and yet the question is there discussed, as to the possibility of being forced to abandon the wheat culture. The difficulty results from the incessant ravages of the weevil and the Hessian fly. That, in its turn, results from weakness of the plant, caused by the absence of its appropriate food. That food-ammonia- being largely contained in clover, pears, beans, beets, artichokes, lupines, and other vegetables, their cultivation is recommended as furnishing a cure for the now rapidly growing evil; but, unfortunately, the market is distant, and commodities of which the earth yields largely will not bear transportation. Make a market on the land, and both the weevil and the fly will disappear-the power of man over nature always growing with the growth of the power of combination.

totally unoccupied, bearing to it a proportion not widely different from that of the present day. Making allowance for any difference that may exist, the density of population is certainly not one-half greater than it was half a century since. The theory of the governmental policy being that of the exportation of raw products exhaustion of the soil-diffusion of populationdiminution of the power of association- and growing dependence on ships, wagons, railroad cars and engines-its results are seen in the facts, that the rural population of a State like New York, with all its immense advantages, is now declining; that its land is becoming more and more consolidated; that the power to maintain schools and churches is regularly diminishing-centralization growing steadily, with constant diminution in the rapidity of the societary circulation, and equally constant increase of pauperism and of crime. Such are the necessary consequences of a system that forbids the growth of the mechanic arts, and thus prevents development of the powers of the land, and of the man by whom it is tilled. Ohio, a State, that half a century since, was a wilderness, is following rapidly in the same direction; and for the reason, that, with all the vast abundance of coal and ore within her limits, her people are compelled to go abroad for cloth and iron-paying for them by the sale of all the elements of which their rude products are composed.

§ 11. With every step in the progress of dispersion, the dependence of the people upon the trader becomes more and more complete, and the larger, necessarily, is the proportion borne by the capital which is movable to that which is fixed. The tendencies of the system of the United States being all in that direction, the population becomes from year to year more nomadic; and hence it is, that the movable capital bears to the whole mass, as has been already shown, a larger proportion than is to be found among any people of the world, claiming to be considered civilized. In that direction lie sluggish circulation, demoralization, slavery, and barbarism. That the circulation may be rapid, men must come more nearly together the land must be improved - and the fertile soils must be subjected to cultivation; but that these things may be done, there must be that diversity of employments which tends to the development

of the powers of the MAN. Directly the reverse of all this being the general tendency of their policy, the world is shocked by the nowdaily-repeated assertion that "free society has proved a failure" -the most perfect form of society being that in which the man. who labors is a slave to him who lives by trading in the products of the sweat and toil of others, created, like himself, in the image of their Creator, and, equally with himself, entitled to claim a right freely to apply their powers, in the manner that may seem best fitted for enabling them to support themselves, their wives and children. The belief in the divine origin of slavery must arise, and must be strengthened, in any community in which trade acquires power at the expense of commerce.

§ 12. By many English and French writers, the advantage resulting from division of the land has been denied the advances made in English agriculture being, as they tell us, evidence of the benefit to be derived from consolidation. The question, however, lies in a nutshell. That system is best, which most promotes rapidity of circulation-it being the one which gives the largest amount of force. The land becoming divided, each little farm becomes a saving fund for labor, to be on the instant profitably applied. Becoming consolidated, the day-laborer takes the place of the small proprietor, with constant waste of force the laborer expending in public-houses the time that would have been given to his little farm-the great farmer saving up the produce of his crops, to enable him to pay his rent — and the landlord applying his income to the purchase of horses and dogs, while his land remains unproductive, because unimproved. Under such circumstances, the circulation becomes more sluggish from day to day, with constant decline of force. Land becomes consolidated in India, Ireland, Jamaica, Portugal, and Turkey, the weakest communities of the world. It becomes more and more divided, and its circulation becomes more active, in France, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, and Russia, the advancing communities of Europe. Until, then, it can be shown, that there is one law for England, and another for all the rest of the world, it will have to be admitted that the more rapid the circulation of fixed property, the greater must be the force.

§ 13. Capital is, however, as we are told, indispensable to improvement. What, however, is this capital, which is so much required? The small proprietor feeds himself and his familythus consuming capital. The act of production becomes, however, with him an act of consumption - finding, as he does, a fund in which at once to re-invest the muscular and mental capital, resulting from the previous consumption. That being the order of things which in every country is "promoted by the natural inclinations of man,"*"if human institutions had not thwarted those natural inclinations, the towns could nowhere have increased beyond what the improvement and cultivation of the country in which they were situated would support." The artisan and the laborer would have been everywhere seen placing themselves where food was cheap-force being thus economised, and capital created while "the beauty of the country, the pleasures of a country life, the tranquillity of mind which it promises, and, wherever the injustice of human laws does not disturb it, the independency which it really affords," would have presented, says Adam Smith, those "charms which more or less attract everybody." There being thus made, everywhere, a market on the land for the products of the land, "the inland or home trade, the most important of all, the trade in which an equal capital affords the largest income"-creating the largest demand for labor, because creating the greatest supply of things to be given in exchange, and thus augmenting the rapidity of circulation would not, as is now the case, have been regarded as "wholly subsidiary to the foreign trade."§

Such being the doctrines of Adam Smith, it is impossible to read his book, without a feeling of admiration for the man who so clearly, and so early, saw the course of policy tending most to increase the happiness and respectability, the strength and independence, of men and nations. Believing in the advantage resulting from division of the land, he pointed distinctly to the course which tended to its accomplishment. Feeling with "the small proprietor," familiar with "every part of his little territory," and viewing it with "all the affection which property, especially small property, naturally inspires, and who on that * Wealth of Nations, book 3, chap. i. † Ibid. Ibid.

Ibid, book 10, chap. i.

account takes pleasure not only in cultivating it, but in adorning it," he did not fail to see that he was, "of all improvers, the most industrious, the most intelligent, and the most successful;" and, as he might well have added, the one to whom the world is most indebted for the creation of capital.

Το suppose that land asks capital, is a mistake. The earth is the great donor-all she asks in return being that, when man has done with her gifts, he will return them to her, and thus enable her to increase the amount on the next occasion. The English tenant cannot improve his land as he would do, were he its owner. He must retain as much as will pay his landlord; and it is because of this stoppage of the circulation, that the latter fancies himself, when making improvements, to be giving to the land, when the latter is always giving to him. Had the tenant been the owner of the ill-treated machine, he would have given it twice as much, making no charge-crediting it, on the contrary, with the portion retained for his own consumption. When English landlords talk of spending five or ten pounds per acre, it sounds very large; but, as usual, the real grandeur is in the inverse ratio of that which is apparent. The man who cultivates his own land, puts on twice as much-doing it from year to year, insensibly, and the land being rendered twice more productive by the one operation, than by the other. Nature performs all her operations slowly and gently, but steadily; and the nearer man approaches her, the more nearly is he right. The man who improves his own land works with a long lever, and little power is required. The landlord works with a short lever-requiring far more power, to produce a like effect.*

* “Wherever are found peasant proprietors, are also found that ease, that security, that independence, and that confidence in the future, which insure at the same time happiness and virtue. The peasant who, with his family, does all the work on his little inheritance, who neither pays rent to any one above him, nor wages to any below him, who regulates his production by his consumption, who eats his own corn, drinks his own wine, and is clothed with his own flax and wool, cares little about knowing the price of the market; for he has little to sell and little to buy, and is never ruined by the revolutions of commerce. Far from fearing for the future, it is embellished by his hopes; for he puts out to profit, for his children or for ages to come, every instant which is not required by the labor of the year. Only a few moments, stolen from otherwise lost time, are required to put into the ground the nut which in a hundred years will become a large tree; to hollow out the aqueduct which will drain his field forever; to form the conduit which will bring him a spring of water; to improve, by many little labors