much of Socialists, Communists, Fourierites, and so forth; but the word
Agrarians comprehends all these, and is often made to include men who
have no more idea of engaging in social reforms than they have of
pilgrimizing to the Fountains of the Nile. It is a not uncommon thing
for our political parties to charge one another with Agrarianism; and if
they used the term in its proper sense, it would be found that they had
both been occasionally right, for Agrarian laws have been supported by
all American parties, and will continue to be so supported, we presume,
so long as we shall have a public domain; but in its reproachful
sense Agrarianism can never be charged against any one of the party
organizations which have been known in the United States. A quarter of
a century ago, one of the cleverest of those English tourists who then
used to contrive to go through--or, rather, over--the Republic, seeing
but little, and not understanding that little, proclaimed to his
countrymen, who had not then recovered from the agitation consequent on
the Reform contest, that there existed here a regular Agrarian party,
forming "the _extrême gauche_ of the Worky Parliament," and which
"boldly advocated the introduction of an AGRARIAN LAW, and a periodical
division of property." He represented these men as only following out
the principles of their less violent neighbors, and as eloquently
dilating "on the justice and propriety of every individual being equally
supplied with food and clothing,--on the monstrous iniquity of one man
riding in his carriage while another walks on foot, [there would have
been more reason in the complaint, had the gigless individual objected
to walking on his head,] and after his drive discussing a bottle of
Champagne, while many of his neighbors are shamefully compelled to be
content with the pure element. Only equalize property, they say, and
neither would drink Champagne or water, but both would have brandy, a
consummation worthy of centuries of struggle to attain." He had the
sense to declare that all this was nonsense, but added, that the