Agrarians, though not so numerous or so widely diffused as to create
immediate alarm, were numerous in New York, where their influence was
strongly felt in the civic elections. Elsewhere he predicted the coming
of a "panic" time, when workingmen would be thrown out of employment,
while possessed of the whole political power of the state, with no
military force to maintain civil order and protect property; "and to
what quarter," he mournfully asked, "I shall be glad to know, is the
rich man to look for security, either of person or fortune?"

Twenty-five years have elapsed since Mr. Hamilton put forth this
alarming question, and some recent events have brought it to men's
minds, who had laughed at it in the year of grace 1833. We have seen
Agrarian movements in New York, demonstrations of "Workies," but nothing
was said by those engaged in them of that great leveller, brandy, though
its properties are probably better known to them than those of water.
They have been dignified with the name of "bread riots," and the great
English journal that exercises a sort of censorship over governments and
nations has gravely complimented us on the national progress we have
made, as evidenced in the existence here of a starving population! One
hardly knows whether to fret or to smile over so provoking a specimen of
congratulation. Certainly, if a nation cannot grow old without bringing
the producing classes to beggary, the best thing that could happen to
it would be to die young, like men loved of the gods, according to the
ancient idea. Whether such is the inevitable course of national life or
not, we are confident that what took place a few months ago in New York
had nothing to do with Agrarianism in reality,--using the word after
the manner of the alarmists. It belonged to the ordinary bald humbug of
American politics. It so happened that one of those "crises" which come
to pass occasionally in all business communities occurred at precisely
the time when a desperate political adventurer was making desperate