One of the most fatal evils with which the republican system of government is liable to be assailed, is the diffusion of a spirit of agrarianism among the indigent classes of society. This spirit is now abroad in the world--it is fearfully developing itself in the insurrectionary heavings and tumults of continental Europe, which, however ineffectual now, do nevertheless mark the great internal conflagration--"the march of that mighty burning, which however intangible by human vigilance, is yet hollowing the ground under every community of the civilized world." England's most eloquent and learned divine, tells us but too truly that {277} "there now sits an unnatural scowl on the aspect of the population, a resolved sturdiness in their attitude and gait; and whether we look to the profane recklessness of their habits, or to the deep and settled hatred which rankles in their hearts, we cannot but read in these moral characteristics of this land, the omens of some great and impending overthrow." In our own more happy country, the almost unlimited extension of suffrage in the most populous states, the frequent appeals made to the indigent and the destitute by demagogues for the purpose of inflaming their passions, and of exciting that most blighting and deadly hostility of all, the hostility of the poor against the rich--the tumults and riots at the elections in our great cities--the lawless mobs of the north which have already set the civil authority at defiance, and have pulled down and destroyed the property of the citizen--all are but premonitory symptoms of the approaching calamity--they are but the rumbling sound which precedes the mighty shock of the terrible earthquake. If these things happen now, what may we not expect hereafter? At present the great territorial resources of our country offer the most stimulating reward to labor and enterprise. The laborer of to-day looks forward, and hopes, yes, knows, that by his industry he is to be the capitalist of to-morrow. He feels a prospective interest in the defence of property. The little German farmer with a hundred acres of poor land in the Key Stone State, clad in the coarsest raiment, contented with the simplest food, and saving from his hard earnings the small sum of one hundred dollars a year, would not wish the property of the country to be thrown in jeopardy--he would shudder at the idea of a general scramble, lest he might lose that little patrimony around which the very affections of his heart have been twined.