Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 26.djvu/362

 352 Southern l/i*inrical Society Papers.

and he wrote much for newspapers and periodicals, discussing ques- tions of education, agriculture, politics and literature, the two first by preferance, for he was prominent in all movements for the ad- vancement of education and agriculture. His style was remarkably pure and forcible. He was a strong advocate of free trade and wrote much in favor of it, having at one time had a controversy on the tariff with Mr. Matthew Carey, of Philadelphia. This correspon- dence was conducted in The Spirit of Seventy-Six, a paper pub- lished in Georgetown about 1811. Mr. Garnett wrote under the signature of " Cornplanter," with which title many of Mr. Ran- dolph's letters to Mr. Garnett begin. Mr. Randolph wrote also for this paper under the signature of " Matt Bramble," and it may be mentioned that in a letter to Mr. Garnett, written in 1811, Judge Henry St. George Tucker, Mr. Randolph's half-brother, expresses the opinion that "Cornplanter" and " Matt Bramble " are one and the same person, crediting to Mr. Garnett, Mr. Randolph's articles.

In 1820 Mr. Carey published three letters on the present calami- tous state of affairs, addressed to J. M. Garnett, Esq., President of the " Fredericksburg Agricultural Society," strongly advocating protection for American manufactures.

Of the society just named Mr. Garnett was President for twenty years and delivered to it annual addresses. He was a founder of the Virginia State Agricultural Society, and it is. stated in Lippincott's and in Appleton's Biographical Dictionaries that he was one of the principal founders and the first President of the United States Agri- cultural Society, but the correctness of this statement I cannot verify.

Besides the paper above mentioned Mr. Garnett wrote also for the Argus, the Richmond Enquirer, The National Intelligencer, and other newspapers, and for the Southern Literary Messenger, often under the signature "Oliver Old School," Ruffiri 's farmer's Reg- ister, and later in life for Judge Bird's Albany Cultivator. He de- livered many lectures on agriculture and education in other States as well as in Virginia.

Mr. Garnett was a member of our Anti-tariff Convention that as- sembled in Baltimore in 1821, and was appointed to write an address which was published in Skinner's American Farmer. He was also a member of another Anti-tariff Convention held in Philadelphia in 1831. This Convention addressed a memorial to Congress that was written by Thomas R. Dew, President of William and Mary Col- lege. There were fifteen States represented in it, among them Mas-