The present war is, above all others of which we have heard or read, a
war against landed property. That description of property is in its
nature the firm base of every stable government,--and has been so
considered by all the wisest writers of the old philosophy, from the
time of the Stagyrite, who observes that the agricultural class of all
others is the least inclined to sedition. We find it to have been so
regarded in the practical politics of antiquity, where they are brought
more directly homo to our understandings and bosoms in the history of
Borne, and above all, in the writings of Cicero. The country tribes were
always thought more respectable than those of the city. And if in our
own history there is any one circumstance to which, under God, are to be
attributed the steady resistance, the fortunate issue, and sober
settlement of all our struggles for liberty, it is, that, while the
landed interest, instead of forming a separate body, as in other
countries, has at all times been in close connection and union with the
other great interests of the country, it has been spontaneously allowed
to lead and direct and moderate all the rest. I cannot, therefore, but
see with singular gratification, that, during a war which has been
eminently made for the destruction of the lauded proprietors, as well as
of priests and kings, as much has been done by public works for the
permanent benefit of their stake in this country as in all the rest of
the current century, which now touches to its close.
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