vored by the general government, as well as the two former? That our country is susceptible of immense advances in agriculture, of very great progress both in the quantity and kind of products from the soil, no one can doubt. And it is believed that congress is constitutionally competent to aid and encourage agricultural pursuits as well as manufactures; having power "to promote the general welfare, and the progress of useful arts." Agriculture is truly an art or science as much as manufactures, and discoveries or improvements may be made in the former equally with inventions in mechanics. Agriculture has generally been admitted to be the most necessary of all occupations or pursuits. It is, indeed, essential to the comfort and welfare of mankind. The three great departments or branches of human labor are agriculture, manufactures, and commerce; but agriculture has the priority. As men become civilized, the two last are important, and will be encouraged as society becomes improved. What is ornamental and convenient, will be added to what is necessary.

states.

If agriculture be capable of great advances and improvement, then is it justly worthy of the aid of government. All nations have acknowledged this, and acted in some measure on the conviction. That eminent statesman, Governor De Witt Clinton, said in his public message to the legislature of New York, in 1819, "that agriculture was the most important of all arts, and the most useful of all sciences, and deserves direct encouragement of the It is the foundation of wealth, of power, and prosperity, and should be encouraged as well as schools, or internal improvements of any kind.” He recommended a board of agriculture to be appointed by the government of the state. The attention of the legislature of Massachusetts has long been turned to this object. Large sums have been granted, for many years, to agricultural county societies, and to a state society, for the improvement of the soil, the cattle, etc., by the laborious yeomanry of the commonwealth. The bounty on wheat, by several of the states, is a wise measure, and has produced happy effects. And why should not the federal government lend its aid to the same objects? Why not appropriate the proceeds of the sales of a certain portion of public lands for this purpose? The high rate of duties on imported articles and goods was designed and operated as a bounty upon domestic manufactures; and these have added to the prosperity of the country. But we do not wish to be a manufacturing people for the rest of the world. All which is needed for public wealth and general comfort, is such a measure as to prevent our entire or chief dependance on other nations, and a portion to export in exchange for articles from other countries, which will add to the real enjoyment or ornament of society. We had better have our workshops and factories in Europe, as Mr. Jefferson once said, than have our rich and fertile soil, a mere location for artificial products for the rest of the world. A great and chief employment should be agriculture. It is favorable to health, and morals, and to republican liberty. And where one man or woman is now thus employed, there had better be ten. Where one bushel of wheat is now raised, there might and ought be ten. We had better raise grain for exporting, than cloths. The increase of agriculture will not prove detrimental to commerce; nor indeed, necessarily, to manufacture. But is it not worthy of inquiry, whether less investment in manufacturing establishments, and fewer hands employed in them, and more in agriculture, would not be for the permanent prosperity of the nation, and much more favorable to morals, and therefore, to the peace and stability of our republic? Let manufactures be supported, and even extended, as the coun

try increases in population; but let them not be considered the highest object, or worthy of the greatest anxiety to be enlarged.

The soil of a great part of the United States is favorable to agricultural pursuits, and great improvements may be yet made in the manner of cultivation, and the products to be raised. Most parts, even of the New England states, might be made to produce double and treble its present amount and value. Some states might easily increase their products seven fold. And we need not fear a surplusage. Europe will afford a market. England and France, some years, may stand in need of ten times the amount which we now usually export there.

Great Britain is as much indebted for her prosperity and wealth to agriculture, as to her commerce and manufacture; and the government there has long given protection to the interests of agriculture. We do not wish to have the agricultural interests predominate, certainly not to be cherished to the injury or diminution of manufactures and navigation. But the farming interests seem not to have the high estimation and comparative value which they deserve in such a country as this. These interests have been too much neglected by the government; and the attention of public spirited men is therefore invoked to the subject. If the federal government cannot agree to afford aid, or in what particular way to give it, let it furnish funds to each state for the purpose, and leave it with the legislatures of the several states to appropriate it in such manner as shall be considered most useful to the whole people. We advocate not the policy of cramping commerce or manufactures; we plead only for a share of attention to agriculture, corresponding to its vast importance and essential value.

ART. IV.-LANDLORDS AND TENANTS.

THE rights and privileges which the law confers upon landlords, and the heavy obligations and liabilities it imposes upon tenants, are considerations of the deepest importance to those upon whom these vastly disproportionate responsibilities devolve.

Under our republican institutions, there is no class of men who are so abundantly and amply able to sustain themselves, their families, and their fortunes, unprejudiced and uninjured, as the landholders, and yet they are the very persons whom the law delights in selecting as its especial favorites, and who are made the recipients of a profuse legal bounty, which flows in no other direction, and favors with its beneficial influence no other portion of community.

When we reflect upon the immense risks to which the property and fortunes of the merchant are exposed, when we view the uncertainty and change attendant upon the varied and extensive operations in which he is engaged, and take into consideration the diversified shades of human character, in which, whether light or dark, he is often compelled, in the course of his various dealings, to repose confidence and trust, we are impelled by the strongest feelings which justice and morality can awaken in our natures, to acknowledge that he whose whole substance is often exposed to the destructive action of the elements which hover around mercantile adventure, is equally entitled to the fostering protection of our enlightened legislation, as

the individual whose fortunes are safely invested, and their rich interest permanently secured, with the earth itself as an everlasting bond. But however much it may be deemed repugnant to the genius of our institutions, the professed wisdom and liberality of our republican legislation, and the assumed equality of our laws, it is equally true that the holder of real estate is permitted to enjoy many highly important privileges and benefits, in which the rest of society are not allowed to participate. Upon what principle of morality, justice, or even expediency, this glaring partiality evinced by our laws is justified, it is impossible to determine; and yet this violation of the plainest and most obvious rules of natural and inalienable right, is continued and perpetuated without inspiring in the minds of a suffering community the smallest portion of that indignation, which would be aroused and called into hostile action to any other measure, embodying but half the tyranny which centres in this branch of our jurisprudence.

The most powerful and effectual weapon which the landlord wields, is the instrument of distress; and through its influence he is morally certain of obtaining his rent, which misnamed justice permits him in this manner to acquire. In effecting his purpose, this weapon is in his hands a two-edged sword, for he may not only deprive the family of his unfortunate tenant of the last article of property which the law allows him to take, and turn his victims homeless and penniless away; but the innocent neighbor, who from motives of kindness and benevolence lends his friend articles of furniture, for the purpose of enabling his family to enjoy the comforts and conveniences of civilized life, is liable, under our existing laws, to pay dearly for his good nature, by having his property taken to swell the catalogue of a landlord's riches. This summary mode which the law allows a landlord to adopt, for the purpose of securing his debt, is rightly called a distress. It was correctly christened at its birth, and from the cradled child to its giant manhood, no discredit has been suffered to tarnish its name.

From the remotest age in which this agent of the law has been used, down to the present time, it has been the widow's curse, the orphan's fear, and the fruitful source of misery and wretchedness. It sprung from a barbarous age, where the rich and the powerful military lord prescribed unequal and harsh laws for governing the humble and weak tenants of his wide domain. It originated in despotism, and arose out of a system of feudal tenures, whose every feature has been annihilated and destroyed, save this last lingering relic of tyrannical power.

The superior privileges which landlords enjoy over any other class of creditors, are a part of that ancient prerogative which the domineering lords of the soil exercised during the dark ages on the continent of Europe, and which was conferred upon the English and Norman barons by William the Conqueror, after he had subdued England.

Under this system of tenures, as they formerly existed, many degrading services were performed by the tenant, of the most menial character, which were exacted by the landlord under color of the arbitrary and despotic power vested in him by oppressive legislation. As the poorer classes advanced in a knowledge and proper appreciation of their civil rights, a portion of these tyrannical impositions were shaken off, and much of the degradation attached to the character of a tenant was abolished. The personal services and attendance upon the owner of the soil, which formed a portion of the disagreeable return rendered by the tenant for his occupation of the land, was superseded by an entire payment of money in their stead; and

many of the revolting features, which marked the distinction between the rights of landlords and tenants, were annihilated. And how the right to distress, which was a natural incident to these ancient tenures, and has ever been a powerful engine of oppression in the hands of the landlord, could have escaped, unimpaired, the many mighty reforms which enlightened. legislation has introduced, is indeed remarkable, and, shows with conclusive force the immense influence which the owner of the soil has always exercised in preserving this distinctive mark of his superior power.

This right of the landlord to distrain the goods of his tenant for rent, instead of having been narrowed and restricted by modern legislative enactments, has been extended and enlarged. And the great superiority of this remedy over that possessed by any other class of creditors, even as it existed at common law, has been still farther increased by statutory provisions.

It cannot be denied, that all laws should be so framed as to confer upon every member of society equal rights and privileges, and when the legislature of any state secures to one portion of its citizens superior franchises, while it denies their enjoyment to others, it violates the plainest and most obvious principles of universal justice, and commits a palpable outrage upon the liberties of the people.

When we examine the laws of this state governing the relationship existing between landlord and tenant, and view the notorious privileges possessed by the former over those enjoyed by any other creditor, we cannot fail to be deeply impressed with the important necessity of a radical change in this vital part of our jurisprudence. The laws, in this respect, operate with peculiar hardship upon the whole community, with the exception of that portion for whose benefit they are designed; and the interest of the humble and industrious citizen is sacrificed, and the property of his debtor taken, to enrich the haughty and opulent landholder. Almost every species of property found in the possession of the tenant, whether belonging to him or to any other person, may be taken for rent; and no individual is safe in depositing any valuable article with another, until he is satisfied by inquiry, that no rent is due upon the premises where his property is placed. It is true, that there are some exceptions to this rigorous rule, as in case of personal property deposited with the tenant after obtaining the landlord's consent; and also, where property accidentally gets strayed upon the demised premises, or where goods are deposited with a tavern keeper or in any warehouse in the usual course of business, or where an article is left with a mechanic for the purpose of being repaired, and also the property of boarders in taverns and boarding houses; in either of which cases, the landlord cannot distrain; but when property is lent, although but for a day, and is found upon the premises which are rented, the right to distrain it vests immediately in the landlord, and the innocent lender must suffer for his generosity and kindness. Can there be any reasonable ground for extending this right of distress so generally and universally? Is there any justice in declaring, that because one person loans to another a horse or a carriage to be used for one, two, or three days, that a grasping landlord shall be permitted to take advantage of the short time it remains upon his premises, and sell it to satisfy rent which has been three months in accruing? Is this extending the protecting mantle of the laws equally over all, and guarantying to society the uniform enjoyment of beneficial privileges? If such is the tendency of this kind of legislation, we must acknowledge our utter inability to view it in any other light than that of tyranny and oppression. The advocate and apologist for this

glaring partiality in laws, which confer upon the landlord such unusual and arbitrary rights, meets us with the argument, that unless property in the situation we have mentioned could be distrained, multiplied frauds would be practised upon the landlord, and that his premises would be incumbered with goods, for storing which he could get no compensation. This objection is easily obviated: for, if we proceed upon the principle that property is liable to distress in proportion to the time and extent which it occupies the premises, then are we bound to acknowledge that the lien of the landlord upon such property can be extended no farther than is sufficient to satisfy him for the time it has remained in the possession of his tenant, and the amount which he could sell would be only commensurate with his lien.

As the law now stands, if the landlord is fearful that the tenant will not be able to pay his rent, he has presented before him the strongest possible inducements to engage him in enticing the unsuspecting to place their property in such a situation, as to enable him to reach it by using the means which the law justifies; and when once he has seized it within his grasp, the advantage which he has taken of his own wrong is legalized, and he may securely enjoy that of which he has inequitably deprived an innocent. person. We are far from saying that the landlord is often guilty of dishonestly using the advantages with which the laws have clothed him; but whether he is so or is not, can be of little importance, as their impropriety in opening so wide a door for committing fraud and oppression is equally apparent, and the necessity of reform equally imperative.

Another revolting feature presented by this branch of our jurisprudence, is the immense hardship which often falls with great severity upon the under tenant; and here again is discovered the arbitrary prerogative which the landlord is permitted to wield. Let us suppose the case of a person who hires an entire building at a large rent, and underlets a small part of it. The landlord, at the time of leasing the premises, supposes his lessee perfectly responsible, and looks to him alone for payment of the rent, and in judging of his pecuniary means, he has greater facilities, and takes more trouble for the purpose of determining his solvency, than his sub-tenant, to whom the responsibility of the lessee is immaterial; when the rent becomes due, the lessee is unable to pay it, and the under tenant, having property upon the premises, is compelled to respond to the full amount due upon the whole building. This is a case of very common occurrence, and is highly unjust and inequitable; and the law, in obliging the under tenant to pay a sum so exorbitantly beyond that for which he was originally liable, is extremely tyrannical, punishing the innocent sub-tenant for the fault of the landlord in not taking from his lessee the requisite security; and as the under tenant is bound to pay his rent to the lessee, and cannot protect himself from distress by paying it to the landlord, he is not only compelled to respond in the full sum due upon the whole premises, but a portion of it is in this manner twice extorted from him. It is impossible to imagine any law more directly in violation of the broad principles of morality and justice, than the one here presented. It countenances and justifies the most palpable wrong, and is fraught with cruelty and oppression. The rights and privileges conferred upon the landlord in this respect, and the disabilities and hardships imposed upon the tenant, can hardly be paralleled, even in the despotic countries on the continent of Europe. The laws of France and Spain upon this subject, are much milder than in this enlightened and republican state. In France, the landlord can only recover from the under tenant the amount which he was to pay to the