If shadows float over our disc and threaten an eclipse; if there be those who would not avert, but desire to precipitate catastrophe to the Union, these are not the sentiments of the American heart; they 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.  My desire, however, is, that the rural districts shall not lose their relative importance or cease to control in public affairs.  Misled and deceived they may be, interested in a public wrong they cannot be, and theirs is the sober thought upon which reliance must be placed for the correction of errors and delusions, which may temporarily prevail.

In societies like this the farmers have the opportunity of comparing opinions and results, and thus increasing the amount of their knowledge.  The spirit of emulation which is excited must lead to improvement, by better directing energy in their pursuit.  The publication of the results and the comparisons thus instituted with what is done in other States, encourages State pride and developes community feeling.  Whatever tends to the cultivation of the idea of State sovereignty and community independence, strengthens the foundation on which rests our federal government—­the fruition of that principle which led our fathers into the war of the revolution, where they purchased with their blood the rich inheritance transmitted to us.