This reasoning backwards, has
caused Alison, with all his knowledge and fair-mindedness, to fall
into several egregious errors, as I have discovered while recently
reading his great work on Europe. He says we are a migratory race, and
that we do not love the sticks and stones that surround us, but quit
the paternal roof without regret, and consider the play-grounds of
infancy as only so much land for the market. He also hazards the
assertion, that there is not such a thing as a literal farmer,--that
is a tenant, who _farms_ his land from a landlord--in all
America. Now, as a rule, and comparing the habits of America with
those of older countries, in which land is not so abundant, this may
be true; but as literal fact, nothing can be less so. Four-fifths of
the inhabited portion of the American territory, has a civilized
existence of half a century's duration; and there has not been time to
create the long-lived attachments named, more especially in the
regions that are undergoing the moral fusion that is always an
attendant of a new settlement. That thousands of heartless
speculators exist among us, who do regard everything, even to the
graves of their fathers, as only so much improvable property, is as
undeniable as the fact that they are odious to all men of any moral
feeling; but thousands and tens of thousands are to be found in the
country, who _do_ reverence their family possessions from a
sentiment that is creditable to human nature.
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