heaven very cheap, for I am sure you can, with the offer I make, get the
seventy or eighty dollars for four or five months' work. You say if I
will furnish you the money you will deed me the land, and, if you don't
pay the money back, you will deliver possession. Nonsense! If you can't
now live with the land, how will you then live without it? You have
always been kind to me, and I do not mean to be unkind to you. On the
contrary, if you will but follow my advice, you will find it worth more
than eighty times eighty dollars to you.




_Letter to John D. Johnston. Shelbyville. November 4, 1851_


Dear Brother, When I came into Charleston day before yesterday, I
learned that you are anxious to sell the land where you live and move to
Missouri. I have been thinking of this ever since, and cannot but think
such a notion is utterly foolish. What can you do in Missouri better
than here? Is the land any richer? Can you there, any more than here,
raise corn and wheat and oats without work? Will anybody there, any more
than here, do your work for you? If you intend to go to work, there is
no better place than right where you are; if you do not intend to go to
work, you cannot get along anywhere. Squirming and crawling about from
place to place can do no good. You have raised no crop this year; and
what you really want is to sell the land, get the money, and spend it.
Part with the land you have, and, my life upon it, you will never after
own a spot big enough to bury you in. Half you will get for the land you
will spend in moving to Missouri, and the other half you will eat,
drink, and wear out, and no foot of land will be bought. Now, I feel it