Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 | Page 2

test his powers very severely. How much more difficult, then, must it be to give the meaning of words that are never used save in a reproachful sense, which originated in political battles that were fought nearly two thousand years ago, and in a state of society having small resemblance to anything that has ever been known to Christendom! With some few exceptions, party-names continue to have their champions long after the parties they belonged to are as dead as the Jacobites. Many Americans would not hesitate to defend the Federalists, or to eulogize the Federal party, though Federalism long ago ceased even to cast a shadow. The prostitution of the Democratic name has lessened in but a slight degree the charm that has attached to it ever since Jefferson's sweeping re?lection had the effect of coupling it the charming idea of success. But who can be expected to say a word for Agrarian? One might as well look to find a sane man ready to do battle for the Jacobin, which is all but a convertible term for Agrarian, though in its proper sense the latter word is of exactly the opposite meaning to the former. Under the term Agrarians is included, in common usage, all that class of men who exhibit a desire to remove social ills by a resort to means which are considered irregular and dangerous by the great majority of mankind. Of late years we have heard much of Socialists, Communists, Fourierites, and so forth; but the word Agrarians comprehends all these, and is often made to include men who have no more idea of engaging in social reforms than they have of pilgrimizing to the Fountains of the Nile. It is a not uncommon thing for our political parties to charge one another with Agrarianism; and if they used the term in its proper sense, it would be found that they had both been occasionally right, for Agrarian laws have been supported by all American parties, and will continue to be so supported, we presume, so long as we shall have a public domain; but in its reproachful sense Agrarianism can never be charged against any one of the party organizations which have been known in the United States. A quarter of a century ago, one of the cleverest of those English tourists who then used to contrive to go through--or, rather, over--the Republic, seeing but little, and not understanding that little, proclaimed to his countrymen, who had not then recovered from the agitation consequent on the Reform contest, that there existed here a regular Agrarian party, forming "the _extr��me gauche_ of the Worky Parliament," and which "boldly advocated the introduction of an AGRARIAN LAW, and a periodical division of property." He represented these men as only following out the principles of their less violent neighbors, and as eloquently dilating "on the justice and propriety of every individual being equally supplied with food and clothing,--on the monstrous iniquity of one man riding in his carriage while another walks on foot, [there would have been more reason in the complaint, had the gigless individual objected to walking on his head,] and after his drive discussing a bottle of Champagne, while many of his neighbors are shamefully compelled to be content with the pure element. Only equalize property, they say, and neither would drink Champagne or water, but both would have brandy, a consummation worthy of centuries of struggle to attain." He had the sense to declare that all this was nonsense, but added, that the Agrarians, though not so numerous or so widely diffused as to create immediate alarm, were numerous in New York, where their influence was strongly felt in the civic elections. Elsewhere he predicted the coming of a "panic" time, when workingmen would be thrown out of employment, while possessed of the whole political power of the state, with no military force to maintain civil order and protect property; "and to what quarter," he mournfully asked, "I shall be glad to know, is the rich man to look for security, either of person or fortune?"
Twenty-five years have elapsed since Mr. Hamilton put forth this alarming question, and some recent events have brought it to men's minds, who had laughed at it in the year of grace 1833. We have seen Agrarian movements in New York, demonstrations of "Workies," but nothing was said by those engaged in them of that great leveller, brandy, though its properties are probably better known to them than those of water. They have been dignified with the name of "bread riots," and the great English journal that exercises a sort of censorship over governments and nations has gravely complimented us on the national progress we have made, as evidenced in the existence here of a starving population! One