Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 9).djvu/210

 *rents, is in every respect similar to the situation of dissenting clergymen in Britain. America elevates {177} no spiritual Lords, on wool-sacks, in her senate, to oppose the introduction of parochial schools. Nor is there any political body, which courts an alliance with the clergy. I have never heard of any parson who acts as a Justice of the Peace, or who intermixes his addresses to the Great Object of religious worship, with the eulogy of the Holy Alliance. The free scope given to industry is highly conducive to national prosperity. Every man is allowed to exert his talents, in the pursuit of any honest scheme, and in any part of the country, without being prevented by intolerant restrictions or internal taxes. His profits are his own; and he has no dread of their being wrested from him by the idle drones that infest other countries. Hence it is, that the United States abound in enterprizing people, who remove, without hesitation, to any part where they can suppose any advantage may arise, and adopt projects that would neither be tolerated nor thought of by people fettered by the trammels of impolicy. The first failure of a scheme is not here contemplated as finally ruinous, as a backward step is much more easily retrieved than in countries more thickly peopled, and where the avenues of commerce are narrowed by artificial obstructions. There are no branches of manufactures or professions of any kind, restricted to those who pay licenses to the government. The farming interest has no monopoly against the manufacturing: nor has the manufacturing any positive prohibition against the farmer. Local attachments are much weakened by the open prospects of an extensive country, by the abolition of primogenitureship, and by the introduction of laws that promote family justice. The citizen is not bound to a particular spot for the preserva