the scheme. Before possession of the land was obtained, the Mexican Revolution occurred; but the new government confirmed the privilege granted by the old one, with some modifications. The chief of the settlers and his followers were liberally enriched with lands, gratis; on the conditions of their occupying them; of their professing the Catholic religion; and of their being obedient to the laws of the country.
Other persons were tempted by Austin's success to apply for grants. Many obtained them, and disposed of their grants to joint stock companies; so that Texas became the scene of much land-speculation. The companies began to be busy about "stock" and "scrip," which they proffered as preparatory titles to land; and a crowd of ignorant and credulous persons, and of gamblers, thus became greedy after lands which no more belonged to any Americans than Ireland.
Leave was given to the actual settlers by the Mexican Government to introduce, for ten years, duty free, all articles, not contraband, that were necessary for their use and comfort. Under this permission, much smuggling went on: and many adventurers settled in Texas for the very purpose of supplying the neighbouring Indian tribes with contraband articles. Arms and ammunition were plentifully furnished to the savages; and slaves to the settlers; though slavery had been abolished in the country, by whose laws the settlers had engaged to live.
The next step was, an offer on the part of the United States Government to purchase Texas, in order to incorporate it with the Union. The offer was instantly and indignantly rejected by the Mexicans. It may seem surprising that even with the passion for territory that the people of the United States have, they should desire to purchase Texas, while above a billion of acres of land at home were still unoccupied. Slavery is found to be the solution of this, as of almost every other absurdity and unpleasant mystery there. Slavery answers only on a virgin soil, and under certain conditions of the supply of labour. It is destined to die out of the States which it has impoverished, and which come most closely into contrast with those which are flourishing under free labour. It is evidently destined soon to be relinquished by Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware; and not very long afterwards, by the Carolinas, and perhaps Tennessee. The proprietors of slaves have a double purpose in acquiring new territory: to obtain a fresh field for the labour of the slaves they possess; and, (what is at least as important,) to keep up the equality of the representation of the slave and free States in Congress. We have before seen that there is a provision against the introduction of slavery into the lands north-west of the Ohio. When to the representation of the new States of this region, shall be joined that of the old States which relinquish slavery, the remaining slave States will be in a hopeless minority in Congress, unless a representation from new slave regions can be provided. Texas is to be obtained first; and, if desirable, to be divided into several States; and afterwards, the aggressions on the Mexican territory will doubtless be repeated, as often as a new area for slave labour is wanted; and an accession of representation, for the support of slavery, is needed in Congress. Thus it happens that a host of land-speculators, adventurers and slave-owners have, for a long series of years, been interested in the acquisition of Texas.
On the refusal of the Mexican Government to sell Texas, the newspapers of the slave-holding portion of the United States began to indicate methods of obtaining the territory, and to advocate the use of any means for so desirable an object. The agent of the United States at the Mexican capital is believed to have been instigated by his government to intrigue for the purpose which could not be obtained by negotiation. The settlers in Texas made it known along the Mississippi that they might soon be strong enough to establish slavery openly, in defiance of Mexico. This brought in an accession of slave-holding settlers, who evaded the Mexican laws, by calling their slaves "apprentices for ninety-nine years." The Mexicans took alarm; decreed in the State Legislature of Texas that no apprenticeship should, on any pretence, be for a longer term than ten years; forbade further immigration from the United States; and sent a small body of troops to enforce the prohibition. This was in 1829 and 1830.
In 1832, the Mexican troops were unfortunately wanted near the capital, and called in from the frontiers and colonies. The settlers shut up the custom-houses in their part of the country, and defied the laws as much as they pleased. Then a great number of restless, bad spirits began to pour into Texas from the whole of the United States; men who had to fly from their creditors, or from the pursuit of justice. There was probably never seen a more ferocious company of ruffians than Texas contains at this moment. These men, who had nothing to lose, now set to work to wrench the territory from the hands of the Mexicans. They actually proceeded, in 1833, to organize a State Government; opposed earnestly but feebly by the honest, original settlers, who were satisfied with the contract under which they had settled, and had everything to lose by the breach of it. A Convention was called, to prepare a State Constitution, which Stephen Austin had the audacity to carry to the Mexican capital, to pray for its ratification by the Mexican Congress. After some time, he was committed to prison on a charge of treasonable conspiracy. He was still in prison when I was at New Orleans, in May, 1835; and no one of the persons who conversed with me on Texan affairs alluded to the fact.
They spoke of him as if living and acting among the settlers. He wrote to the colonists from his prison, advising strict obedience to the Mexican laws; and, finally, gave his promise to the government to promote order in the colonies; and was dismissed, by the clemency of the administration, without further punishment than an imprisonment of nearly two years.
The wilder adventurers among the settlers had chafed at his advice, but found it necessary to be quiet for a time. The Mexican government put too much trust in them on this account, and restored, during Austin's imprisonment, the freedom of immigration, on the old conditions. The liberty was again shamelessly abused. Slaves were imported _from Africa_, via Cuba, and illegal land speculations were carried on with more vigour than ever. Troops were again sent from the capital to re-open the custom-houses, and enforce their regulations. But it was now too late.
It had long been a settled agreement between the Texan adventurers and many slave-holders of the south, that if slavery could no otherwise be perpetuated in Texas, it should be done by the seizure of that province; all possible aid being given by the residents in the United States, who were a party to the agreement. This was avowed by the adventurers in Texas; and the avowal has been justified by the subscriptions of money, arms, and stores, which have been sent through New Orleans; the companies of volunteers that have given their strength to the bad cause; and the efforts of members of Congress from the south to hurry on the recognition of the independence of Texas by the United States Government. It was with shame and grief that I heard, while I was in New York, last spring, of the public meeting there, which had been got up by men who should have put the influence of their names to a better use,--a public meeting in behalf of the Texan adventurers, where high-sounding common-places had been played off about patriotism, fighting for the dearest rights of man, and so forth. The purpose was, I believe, answered for the time. The price of stock rose; and subscriptions were obtained. The Texan cause was then in the lowest state of depression. It soon revived, in consequence of an unfortunate defeat of the Mexicans, and the capture of the President of their republic, Santa Anna. This, again, was made to serve as the occasion of a public dinner at New York, when some eminent members of Congress were passing through, to the Springs, in the summer. The time will come when those gentlemen will look back upon their speeches at that dinner as among the deeds which, dying, they would most wish to blot. By this time, however, the true character of the struggle was beginning to be extensively recognised: and, day by day, the people of the United States have been since awakening to the knowledge of how they have been cheated in having their best sympathies called forth in behalf of the worst of causes. The great fear is, lest this should prove to be too late; lest, the United States having furnished the means by which the usurpation of Texas has been achieved, the people of the Union should be persuaded that they must follow their common, and otherwise fair rule, of acknowledging the independence of all States that are _de facto_ independent, without having anything to do with the question _de jure_.
What has been the national conduct of the United States on this great question? The government has been very nearly impartial. It must be allowed that factions and individuals were already doing so much that, if the government wished all possible success to the Texans, it could hardly do better than be quiet while they were receiving the aid of its constituents. While the theft of Texas has been achieved, (if it be achieved,) by United States men, money and arms, the general government has been officially regarding it as ostensibly and actually a foreign affair. However much may be true of the general belief in the interest of its members in the success of the Texan aggression, the government has preserved a cool and guarded tone throughout; and the only act that I know of for which it can be blamed is for not removing General Gaines from his command on the frontier, on his manifestation of partisanship on the Texan side. General Gaines was ordered to protect the settlers on the south-western frontier, who might be in danger from the Mexicans, and from the fierce Indians who were engaged on the Mexican side of the quarrel. General Gaines wrote to head quarters of his intentions of crossing, to attack the Mexicans, not only the inner bounds of the United States territory, but the disputed boundary, claimed by the United States, and disallowed by Mexico. Immediate orders were despatched to him to do no such thing; to confine himself, except in a strong emergency, to the inner boundary; and on no account whatever to cross the disputed line. This was not enough. An officer who had shown himself so indisposed to the neutrality professed by his government, should have been sent where he could indulge his partialities with less hazard to the national honour.
Some senators from the south pressed, last session, with indecent haste, for the recognition of the independence of Texas. The speech of Ex-President Adams remains as an eternal rebuke to such.[15] This speech was the most remarkable individual act of the session; and no session has been distinguished by one more honourable. There was no attempt at a reply to it, in or out of either House. Mr. Adams left no resource to the advocates of the Texan cause but abuse of himself: the philosophy of which he, no doubt, understood as well as other people. Various public men, in various public assemblies, have declared their desire for the success of the Texans; and have joined with this the avowal that the value of slaves will rise fifty per cent, as soon as the independence of Texas is acknowledged.
The war is not yet over. The vicissitudes have been so great,--each party has appeared at times in so hopeless a condition, that the friends of American honour, and the foes of slavery, do not yet despair of the ultimate expulsion of the aggressors, and the restoration of Texas to Mexico. If these hopes must be surrendered,--if slavery is to be re-established on a constitutional basis, in a vast territory where it had been actually abolished,--if a new impulse is thus to be given to the traffic in native Africans,[16]--if the fair fame of the Anglo-Americans is to be thus early, and thus deeply stained, good men must rouse themselves the more to enlighten the ignorance through which the misfortune has happened. They must labour to exhibit the truth, keeping unshaken their faith in the theory of their constitution that "the majority will be in the right."
It is much to be feared that, even if Texas were acknowledged to-morrow to be a Mexican State, an injury would be found to have been done to the American people, which it will take a long time and much experience to repair. No pains have been spared to confirm the delusion, that the possession of more and more land is the only thing to be desired, alike by the selfish and the patriotic; by those who would hastily build up their own fortunes, and by those who desire the aggrandisement of their country. No one mourned with me more earnestly over this popular delusion than a member of Congress, who has since been one of the most vehement advocates of the Texan cause, and has thereby done his best to foster the delusion. He told me that the metaphysics of society in the south afford a curious study to the observer; and that they are humbling to a resident. He told me that, so far from the honour and happiness of any region being supposed to lie in the pursuit of the higher objects of life, any man would be pronounced "imbecile" who, having enough for his moderate wants, should prefer the enjoyment of his patrimony, his family relations, and intercourse with the society in which he was brought up, to wandering away in pursuit of more land. He complained that he was heart-sick when he heard of American books: that there was no character of permanence in anything;--all was fluctuation, except the passion for land, which, under the name of enterprise, or patriotism; or something else that was creditable, would last till his countrymen had pushed their out-posts to the Pacific. He insisted that the only consolation arose from what was to be hoped when pioneering must, perforce, come to a stop. He told me of one and another of his intelligent and pleasant young neighbours, who were quitting their homes and civilised life, and carrying their brides "as bondwomen" into the wilderness, because fine land was cheap there. If all this be true of the young gentry of the south, as I believe it is, what hope is there that the delusion will not long remain among those who have no other guides than Experience;--that slowest of all teachers?
The people of the United States have, however, kept their eyes open to one great danger, arising from this love of land. They have always had in view the disadvantage of rich men purchasing tracts larger than they could cultivate. They saw that it was contrary to the public interest that individuals should be allowed to interpose a desert between other settlers whose welfare depends much on their having means of free communication, and a peopled neighbourhood; and that it is inconsistent with republican modes that overgrown fortunes should arise by means of an early grasping of large quantities of a cheap kind of property, which must inevitably become of the highest value in course of time. The reduction in the price of land would probably have been greater, but for the temptation which the cheapening would hold out to capitalists.
Another reason assigned for not still further lowering the price is, the danger of depreciating a kind of property held by the largest proportion of the people. This is obviously unsound; since the property held by this large proportion of the people is improved land, whose relation in value to other kinds of property is determined by quite other circumstances than the amount of the original purchase-money. The number of people who sell again unimproved land is so small as not to be worthy to enter into the account.
Large grants of land have been made to schools and colleges. Upwards of eight millions of acres have, I believe, been thus disposed of. There seems no objection to this, at the time it was done; as there can be no doubt that grants will be cultivated that have such an interest hanging on their cultivation. These grants were made while there was a national debt. Now, there is a surplus revenue; and appropriations of this kind had better be made henceforth from the money which has arisen from the sale of land than in a way which would force more land into the market.
It is to be hoped, too, that no more recompenses for public service will be offered in land, like the large grants which were made to soldiers after the revolutionary war. The soldiers have disposed of their lands much under the governmental price, in order to obtain a sale; and the hurtful dispersion of settlers, and the sale of tracts too large to be well-cultivated, have been thereby assisted.
The great question incessantly repeated throughout the United States is, what is to be done with the immense amount of land remaining unsold; and with the perpetually increasing revenue arising from the sale, as it proceeds? Various propositions are afloat,--none of which appear to me so wise as some which remain to be offered. One proposition is to divide the lands again among the States, apportioning the amount according to the representation in Congress, or to the population as given by the last census. Besides the difficulty of making the apportionment fairly, this plan would afford fatal inducements to a greater dispersion of people than has yet taken place. It is also argued that no constitutional power exists by which the cession of 1787 can be reversed.
Another proposition is, to let the sale of lands go on as it does now, and divide the proceeds among the several States, for purposes of Education, Colonisation of the coloured race, and Internal Improvements.
Under such a plan, there would be endless disputes about the amounts to be paid over to the different States. The general government would have a new and dangerous function assigned to it. Besides, as much of the surplus revenue is derived from duties, it seems a shorter and more natural method to leave off levying money that is not wanted, than to levy it, use it, and make a distribution of other funds among the States. This subject will, however, come under consideration hereafter.
Others propose that nothing should be done: that the lands should go on being sold according to the present demand, and the proceeds to accumulate, till some accident happens,--a war, or other expensive adventure,--to help to dissipate them. The first part of the proposition will probably stand good: for it seems a difficult thing to raise the price of land again:--an impossible thing, till the people shall show that they understand the case by demanding an increase of price: but the second part of the proposition cannot be acceded to. It is inconsistent with the first principles of democracy that large sums of money should accumulate in the hands of the general government. The accumulation must be disposed of, and the sources of revenue restrained.
There are modes of advantageously disposing of the surplus revenue which are obvious to those whose economical experience is precisely the reverse of that of the people of the United States. They are not likely to be at present assented to,--perhaps even to be tolerated by the inhabitants of the new world. Such as they are, they will be presented in the next section.
The lowest price given of late for land, that I heard of, was a quarter-dollar per acre; (for these are not times when three thousand acres are to be had for a rifle; and a whole promontory for a suit of clothes.) Some good land may be still had, at a distance from roads and markets, from those who want to turn their surplus land into money, for a quarter-dollar per acre. Some that I saw in New Hampshire under these circumstances has advanced in five years to a dollar and a half per acre: and some of about equal quality, about fifteen miles nearer to a market, sold at the same time for ten dollars per acre. I saw some low land, on the banks of the river, near Pittsburg, which would not sell at any price a few years ago, when salt was brought over the mountains on pack-horses, and sold at a dollar a quart. Now salt is obtained in any quantity by digging near this land; and the meadow is parted into lots of ten acres each, which sell at the rate of one thousand dollars per acre. This is, no doubt, in prospect of the salt-works which are destined to flourish here. The highest price I heard of being given (unless in a similar case in New York) was for street lots in Mobile; one hundred and ten dollars per foot frontage.
For agricultural purposes, the price of land varies, according to its fertility, and, much more, to its vicinity to a market, in a manner which cannot easily be specified. I think the highest price I heard of was fifteen hundred dollars per acre. This was in the south. In the north and west, I heard of prices varying from thirty to one hundred dollars, even in somewhat retired situations. One thing seems to be granted on all hands: that a settler cannot fail of success, if he takes good land, in a healthy situation, at the government price. If he bestows moderate pains on his lot, he may confidently reckon on its being worth at least double at the end of the year: much more, if there are growing probabilities of a market.
The methods according to which the sales of the public lands in the United States are conducted are excellent. The lots are so divided as to preclude all doubt and litigation about boundaries. There is a general land-office at Washington, and a subordinate one in each district, where all business can be transacted with readiness and exactitude. Periodical sales are made of lands which it is desirable to bring into the market.
These are disposed of to the highest bidder. The advance of the population into the wilderness is thus made more regular than it would be if there were not a rendezvous in each district, where it could be ascertained how the settlement of the neighbouring country was going on; titles are made more secure; and less impunity is allowed to fraud.
The pre-emption laws, originally designed for the benefit of poor settlers, have been the greatest provocatives to fraud. It seemed hard that a squatter, who had settled himself on unoccupied land, and done it nothing but good, should be turned off without remuneration, or compelled to purchase his own improvements; and in 1830, a bill was therefore passed, granting a pre-emption right to squatters who had taken such possession of unsold lands. It provided that when two individuals had cultivated a quarter section of land, (one hundred and sixty acres,) each should have a pre-emption right with regard to half the cultivated portion: and each also to a pre-emption of eighty acres anywhere else in the same land district. Of course, abundance of persons took advantage of this law to get the best land very cheap. Two men, by merely cutting down, or blazing a few trees, or "camping out" for a night or two, on a good quarter-section, have secured it at the minimum price. A Report to Congress states that there is reason to believe that "large companies have been founded, who procure affidavits of improvements to be made, get the warrants issued upon them, and whenever a good tract of land is ready for sale, cover it over with their _floats_, (warrants of the required habitation,) and thus put down competition. The frauds upon the public, within the past year, (1835,) from this single source, have arisen to many millions of dollars." Such errors in matters of detail are sure to be corrected soon after being discovered. The means will speedily be found of showing a due regard to the claims of squatters, without precipitating the settlement of land by unfairly reducing its price in the market. Whatever methods may tend to lessen rather than to increase the facilities for occupying new land, must, on the whole, be an advantage, while the disproportion between land and labour is so great as it now is in the western regions of the United States.
SECTION II.
RURAL LABOUR.
English farmers settling in the United States used to be a joke to their native neighbours. The Englishman began with laughing, or being shocked, at the slovenly methods of cultivation employed by the American settlers: he was next seen to look grave on his own account; and ended by following the American plan.
The American ploughs round the stumps of the trees he has felled, and is not very careful to measure the area he ploughs, and the seed he sows.
The Englishman clears half the quantity of land,--clears it very thoroughly; ploughs deep, sows thick, raises twice the quantity of grain on half the area of land, and points proudly to his crop. But the American has, meantime, fenced, cleared, and sown more land, improved his house and stock, and kept his money in his pocket. The Englishman has paid for the labour bestowed on his beautiful fields more than his fine crop repays him. When he has done thus for a few seasons, till his money is gone, he learns that he has got to a place where it answers to spend land to save labour; the reverse of his experience in England; and he soon becomes as slovenly a farmer as the American, and begins immediately to grow rich.
It would puzzle a philosopher to compute how long some prejudices will subsist in defiance of, not only evidence, but personal experience.
These same Americans, who laugh (reasonably enough) at the prejudiced English farmer, seem themselves incapable of being convinced on a point quite as plain as that between him and themselves. The very ground of their triumph over him is their knowledge of the much smaller value of land, and greater value of labour, in America than in England: and yet there is no one subject on which so many complaints are to be heard from every class of American society as the immigration of foreigners. The incapacity of men to recognise blessings in disguise has been the theme of moralists in all ages: but it might be expected that the Americans, in this case, would be an exception. It is wonderful, to a stranger, to see how they fret and toil, and scheme and invent, to supply the deficiency of help, and all the time quarrel with the one means by which labour is brought to their door. The immigration of foreigners was the one complaint by which I was met in every corner of the free States; and I really believe I did not converse with a dozen persons who saw the ultimate good through the present apparent evil.
It is not much to be wondered at that gentlemen and ladies, living in Boston and New York, and seeing, for the first time in their lives, half-naked and squalid persons in the street, should ask where they come from, and fear lest they should infect others with their squalor, and wish they would keep away. It is not much to be wondered at that the managers of charitable institutions in the maritime cities should be weary of the claims advanced by indigent foreigners: but it is surprising that these gentlemen and ladies should not learn by experience that all this ends well, and that matters are taking their natural course. It would certainly be better that the emigrants should be well clothed, educated, respectable people; (except that, in that case, they would probably never arrive;) but the blame of their bad condition rests elsewhere, while their arrival is, generally speaking, almost a pure benefit. Some are intemperate and profligate; and such are, no doubt, a great injury to the cities where they harbour; but the greater number show themselves decent and hardworking enough, when put into employment. Every American acknowledges that few or no canals or railroads would be in existence now, in the United States, but for the Irish labour by which they have been completed: and the best cultivation that is to be seen in the land is owing to the Dutch and Germans it contains. What would housekeepers do for domestic service without foreigners? If the American ports had been barred against immigration, and the sixty thousand foreigners per annum, with all their progeny, had been excluded, where would now have been the public works of the United States, the agriculture, the shipping?
The most emphatic complainers of the immigration of foreigners are those who imagine that the morals of society suffer thereby. My own conviction is that the morals of society are, on the whole, thereby much improved.
It is candidly allowed, on all hands, that the passion of the Irish for the education of their children is a great set-off against the bad qualities some of them exhibit in their own persons; and that the second and third generations of Irish are among the most valuable citizens of the republic. The immigrant Germans are more sober and respectable than the Irish; but there is more difficulty in improving them and their children. The Scotch are in high esteem. My own opinion is that most of the evils charged upon the immigrants are chargeable upon the mismanagement of them in the ports. The atrocious corruption of the New York elections, where an Irishman, just landed, and employed upon the drains, perjures himself, and votes nine times over, is chargeable, not upon immigration, nor yet upon universal suffrage, but upon faults in the machinery of registration. Again, if the great pauper-palace, over the Schuylkill, near Philadelphia, be half full of foreigners; if it be true that an Irish woman was seen to walk round it, and heard to observe that she should immediately write over for all her relations; the evil is chargeable upon there being a pauper-palace, with the best of food and clothing, and no compulsion to work, in a country where there is far more work and wages than there are hands to labour and earn. There is in New York a benevolent gentleman who exercises a most useful and effectual charity. He keeps a kind of registry office for the demand and supply of emigrant labour; takes charge of the funds of such emigrants as are fortunate enough to have any; and befriends them in every way. He declares that he has an average of six situations on his list ready for every sober, able-bodied man and woman that lands at New York.
The bad moral consequences of a dispersion of agricultural labour, and the good moral effects of an adequate combination, are so serious as to render it the duty of good citizens to inform themselves fully of the bearings of this question before they attempt to influence other minds upon it. Those who have seen what are the morals and manners of families who live alone in the wilds, with no human opinion around them, no neighbours with whom to exchange good offices, no stimulus to mental activity, no social amusements, no church, _no life_, nothing but the pursuit of the outward means of living,--any one who has witnessed this will be ready to agree what a blessing it would be to such a family to shake down a shower of even poor Irish labourers around them. To such a family no tidings ought to be more welcome than of the arrival of ship-load after ship-load of immigrants at the ports, some few of whom may wander hitherwards, and by entering into a combination of labour to obtain means of living, open a way to the attainment of the ends. Sixty thousand immigrants a-year! What are these spread over so many thousand square miles? If the country could be looked down upon from a balloon, some large clusters of these would be seen detained in the cities, because they could not be spared into the country; other clusters would be seen about the canals and railroads; and a very slight sprinkling in the back country, where their stations would be marked by the prosperity growing up around them.
The expedients used in the country settlements to secure a combination of labour when it is absolutely necessary, show how eminently deficient it is. Every one has heard of the "frolic" or "bee," by means of which the clearing of lots, the raising of houses, the harvesting of crops is achieved. Roads are made, and kept by contributions of labour and teams, by settlers. For the rest, what can be done by family labour alone is so done, with great waste of time, material, and toil. The wonderful effects of a "frolic," in every way, should serve, in contrast with the toil and difficulty usually expended in producing small results, to incline the hearts of settlers towards immigrants, and to plan how an increase of them may be obtained.
Minds are, I hope, beginning to turn in this direction. In New England, where there is the most combination of labour, and the poorest land, it is amusing to see the beginning of discoveries on this head. I find, in the United States' Almanack for 1835, an article on agricultural improvements, (presupposing a supply of labour as the primary requisite,) which bears all the marks of freshness and originality, of having been a discovery of the writer's.
"If such improvements as are possible, or even easy," (where there is labour at hand,) "were made in the husbandry of this country, many and great advantages would be found to arise. As twice the number of people might be supported on the same quantity of land, all our farming towns would become twice as populous as they are likely to be in the present state of husbandry. There would be, in general, but half the distance to travel to visit one's friends and acquaintances. Friends might oftener see and converse with each other. Half the labour would be saved in carrying the corn to mill, and the produce to market; half the journeying saved in attending our courts; and half the expense in supporting government, and in making and repairing roads; half the distance saved in going to the smith, weaver, clothier, &c.; half the distance saved in going to public worship, and most other meetings; for where steeples are four miles apart, they would be only two or three.
Much time, expense and labour would, on these accounts, be saved; and civilisation, with all the social virtues, would, perhaps, be proportionally promoted and increased."
Before this can be done, there must be hands to do it. Steeples must remain four or fourteen miles apart, till there are beings enough in the intervening space to draw them together. I saw, on the Mississippi, a woman in a canoe, paddling up against the stream; probably, as I was told, to visit a neighbour twenty or thirty miles off. The only comfort was that the current would bring her back four times as quickly as she went up. What a blessing would a party of emigrant neighbours be to a woman who would row herself twenty miles against the stream of the Mississippi for companionship!
Instead of complaining of the sixty thousand emigrants per annum, and lowering the price of land, so as to induce dispersion, it would be wise, if it were possible, in the people of the United States to bring in sixty thousand more labourers per annum, and raise the price of land.
This last cannot, perhaps, be done: but why should not the other? With a