The Rich And The Poor Are Not So Far Removed
From Each Other As They Are In Europe.
Some few towns excepted, we
are all tillers of the earth, from Nova Scotia to West Florida.
We
are a people of cultivators, scattered over an immense territory,
communicating with each other by means of good roads and navigable
rivers, united by the silken bands of mild government, all
respecting the laws, without dreading their power, because they are
equitable. We are all animated with the spirit of an industry which
is unfettered and unrestrained, because each person works for
himself. If he travels through our rural districts he views not the
hostile castle, and the haughty mansion, contrasted with the clay-
built hut and miserable cabin, where cattle and men help to keep
each other warm, and dwell in meanness, smoke, and indigence. A
pleasing uniformity of decent competence appears throughout our
habitations. The meanest of our log-houses is a dry and comfortable
habitation. Lawyer or merchant are the fairest titles our towns
afford; that of a farmer is the only appellation of the rural
inhabitants of our country. It must take some time ere he can
reconcile himself to our dictionary, which is but short in words of
dignity, and names of honour. There, on a Sunday, he sees a
congregation of respectable farmers and their wives, all clad in
neat homespun, well mounted, or riding in their own humble waggons.
There is not among them an esquire, saving the unlettered
magistrate. There he sees a parson as simple as his flock, a farmer
who does not riot on the labour of others. We have no princes, for
whom we toil, starve, and bleed: we are the most perfect society now
existing in the world. Here man is free as he ought to be; nor is
this pleasing equality so transitory as many others are. Many ages
will not see the shores of our great lakes replenished with inland
nations, nor the unknown bounds of North America entirely peopled.
Who can tell how far it extends? Who can tell the millions of men
whom it will feed and contain? for no European foot has as yet
travelled half the extent of this mighty continent!
The next wish of this traveller will be to know whence came all
these people? they are a mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French,
Dutch, Germans, and Swedes. From this promiscuous breed, that race
now called Americans have arisen. The eastern provinces must indeed
be excepted, as being the unmixed descendants of Englishmen. I have
heard many wish that they had been more intermixed also: for my
part, I am no wisher, and think it much better as it has happened.
They exhibit a most conspicuous figure in this great and variegated
picture; they too enter for a great share in the pleasing
perspective displayed in these thirteen provinces. I know it is
fashionable to reflect on them, but I respect them for what they
have done; for the accuracy and wisdom with which they have settled
their territory; for the decency of their manners; for their early
love of letters; their ancient college, the first in this
hemisphere; for their industry; which to me who am but a farmer, is
the criterion of everything.
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