Yet more on "agrarianism": Mr. McWillie (27 Apr 1850): of Mississippi, on the President's Message Communicating the Constitution of California: "I have heard the objection urged against the institution of slavery at the South, that it entered into competition with the free labor of there North, and therefore must be abolished. This is agrarianism. It is confiscating the estates of one half of the people of this union for he benefit of the other half. And permit me, in this connection to suggest to my friends of the North, that when they advice gotten through with this negro agrarianism, and the agrarianism truth is going on in relations to the public land that the next move may vie real bona fide agrarianism at home. The idea that all men are born free and equal is a very pretty one, and I suppose that equality in proporty is about as desirable as equality in political rights and as much political capital could be made out of this idea, as most of the humbugs of the day; and I suppose it might be made to meet the ideas of the foreign emigrants who are arriving by hundreds of thousands in our northern cities and for whose votes so many political aspirants appear to be most anxious. The idea of every man having his own independent estate, sufficient for every comfort, would be very taking...
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