Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1802).djvu/240

226 citizens ſhould be employed in its improvement, or that one half ſhould be called off from that to exerciſe manufactures and handicraft arts for the other? Thoſe who labor in the earth are the choſen people of God, if ever he had a choſen people, whoſe breaſts he has made his peculiar depoſit for ſubſtantial and genuine virtue. It is the focus in which he keeps alive that ſacred fire, which otherwiſe might eſcape from the face of the earth.—Corruption of morals in the maſs of cultivators is a phenomenon of which no age nor nation has furniſhed an example. It is the mark ſet on thoſe, who not looking up to heaven, to their own ſoil and induſtry, as does the huſbandman, for their ſubſiſtance, depend for it on the caſualties and caprice of cuſtomers. Dependence begets ſubſervience and venality, ſuffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the deſigns of ambition. This, the natural progreſs and conſequence of the arts, has ſometimes perhaps been retarded by accidental circumſtances: but, generally ſpeaking, the proportion which the aggregate of the other claſſes of citizens bears in any ſtate to that of its huſbandmen, is the proportion of its unfound to its healthy parts, and is a good enough barometer whereby to meaſure its degree of corruption. While we have land to labor then, let us never wiſh to ſee our citizens occupied at a work-bench, or twirling a diſtaff. Carpenters, maſons, ſmiths, are wanting in huſbandry: but for the general operation of manufacture, let our work-ſhops remain in Europe. It is better to carry proviſions and materials to workmen there, than bring them to the proviſions and materials, and with them their manners and principles. The loſs by the