Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 8).djvu/142

 With respect to emigrations from our seaboard to the inland states and territories, there is danger of the strength of the nation being, for a time, lessened. The physical force of a country should always be kept compact. By dividing its powers its energies will be weakened.

Such, with us, has been the impetus of the spirit of emigration, that the influence of example and habit, in relation to it, will continue to operate for some time to come. Indeed such is the fascinating nature of the subject, that it will always be more or less popular; and as to the habit of moving from place to place, it is, in some, so completely fixed, that after they have passed through every part of the land of promise, they will, for the sake of one more change, return to the seaboard again. In a national point of view I am far from wishing to discourage domestic emigration; and I am far too from thinking that it does not frequently result in individual advantage.

It is essential to the preservation of our free and economical institutions, that the seaboard should from time to time transplant a part of its population to the interior. The existence of liberty in a state ultimately depends, in no small degree, upon rural avocations, and upon a particular climate and scenery. In some of our western states and territories liberty will exist for a great length of time. Transplanted from the seaboard, their citizens will acquire a new moral force, and that force will be cherished by the local peculiarities of their situation. These states will produce a happy balance between the agricultural and commercial interests, and prove at once the check and the political salvation of the maratime states.

{40} In proportion to the population of our maratime cities will be their luxury, dissipation, and indifference to simple and rational modes of government. No doubt the interests of commerce ought to be cherished; not, how