Faithfully yours,
Charles Sumner.
FARMERS, THEIR HAPPINESS AND LIBERAL SENTIMENTS.
Speech at the Dinner of the Hampshire County Agricultural Society, at Northampton, Mass., October 14, 1862.
At the dinner which followed the cattle-show, Mr. Sumner was introduced by Hon. Erastus Hopkins, who commenced by alluding to their early days at the Boston Latin School.
“Gentlemen,—It is now full forty years, when at school I had a schoolmate and a classmate who in point of physical altitude and breadth, but more especially (I am no flatterer, I only speak historic truth) in point of diligence and scholarship, was primus inter pares,—first among equals. That boy was father of the man. He now holds the position of Senator in the Senate of the United States, with a relative eminence no less than that of his earlier days. He is the valued servant and the honored Senator of Massachusetts, whom she has hitherto delighted to honor, and whom, so long as she remains true to her cherished sentiments, to her gushing instincts, and to her memorable history, she will ever honor. [Loud applause.]
“We were told yesterday by the Rev. Dr. Huntington, in his admirable address delivered in this hall, that the farmer owed his first duty to his land,—to care for it, to fertilize it, and to beautify it. Recurring to this point, at the close of his address, he reminded the farmer that ‘duty to his land’ was susceptible of a double meaning: the one referring to the few acres of his own individual and exclusive proprietorship; the other, to that great land, that vast country, which he owned, and to which he owed duty, in common with all his fellow-citizens.