are rather the exceptions and should not disturb our confidence in
that deep-seated sentiment of nationality which aided our fathers when
they entered into the compact of union, and which has preserved it to
us. You manifest that sentiment to-day in the courtesy which you have
extended to me. In what other land could a countryman go so far from
his home and receive among strangers the attention which could only be
expected from friends? But it is not your kindness only, which has
caused me here to feel at home; I have been brought in contact with
men of my own pursuit, the tillers of the ground and the breeders of
stock; and in my intercourse with this class of your citizens, I have
been further confirmed in the high estimate heretofore placed upon
that portion of our population. Happily for our country and its
institutions, extensive territory and favorable climate, have
attracted a large part of our population to agricultural pursuits. It
is in the individuality, the sobriety, and self reliance of the rural
population that I look for the highest development of those qualities
essential to self-government, and the brightest illustration of
patriotic devotion. They may not be the best informed, but learning
and wisdom are by no means equivalent terms. Isolation and entire
dependence upon himself; give independence of character and favor that
self-inquiry which best enables man to comprehend and measure the
motives of his fellow. Crowded together in cities originality is lost,
mind becomes as it were acadamized; and though the intercourse is
favorable to the acquisition of knowledge, it is most unfriendly to
that individuality, independence, and purity, without which republican
governments rapidly sink into decay. It was probably in this view that
Mr. Jefferson said, great cities were sores upon the body politic.
Needful for the purposes of commerce, required for the exchanges on
which agricultural and manufacturing industry depend for their
prosperity,--they are not evils which we could desire to see abated.