Excerpt from An Address Delivered Before the Seventh Annual Meeting of the Virginia State Agricultural Society: November 4th, 1858 Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the Agricultural Society: It seems to me eminently proper, to connect with these imposing exhibitions of the trophies of your agricultural skill, a discussion of the whole bearings and relations, jural, moral, social, and economical, of that peculiar industrial system to which we are so largely indebted for the results that have awakened our pride and gratification. No class in the community has so many and such large interests gathered up in the safety and permanence of that system as the Farmers of the State. The main-wheel and spring of your material prosperity, interwoven with the entire texture of your social life, underlying the very foundations of the public strength and renown, to lay upon it any rash hand would put in peril whatever you value; the security of your property, the peace of your society, the well-being - if not the existence of that dependent race which Providence has committed to your guardianship - the stability of your government, the preservation in your midst of union, liberty, and civilization. By the introduction of elements of such inexpressible magnitude, the politics of our country have been invested with the grandeur and significance which belong to those great struggles upon which depend the destinies of nations. The mad outbreaks of popular passion, the rapid spread of anarchical opinions, the mournful decay of ancient patriotism, the wide disruption of Christian unity, which have marked the progress, and disclosed the power, purpose and spirit of this agitation, come home to your business and bosoms with impressive emphasis of warning and instruction. No pause in a strife around which cluster all the hopes and fears of freemen, can give any earnest of enduring peace, until the principles of law and order which cover with sustaining sanction all the relations of our society, have obtained their rightful ascendency over the reason and conscience of the Christian world. The most instructive chapters in history are those of opinions. The decisive battlefields of the world furnish but vulgar and deceptive indices of human progress. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.