substantially as a free gift by the
government. Here all who would rather be owners than tenants, and wish
to improve and cultivate their own soil, are invited. Here, too, all who
would become equals among equals, citizens (not subjects) of a great and
free country, enjoying the right of suffrage, and eligible to every
office except the presidency, can come and occupy with us this great
inheritance. Here liberty, equality, and fraternity reign supreme, not
in theory or in name only, but in truth and reality. This is the
brotherhood of man, secured and protected by our organic law. Here the
Constitution and the people are the only sovereigns, and the government
is administered by their elected agents, and for the benefit of the
people. Those toiling elsewhere for wages that will scarcely support
existence, for the education of whose children no provision is made by
law, who are excluded from the right of suffrage, may come here and be
voters and citizens, find a farm given as a homestead, free schools
provided for their children at the public expense, and hold any office
but the presidency, to which their children, born here, are eligible.
What does England for any one of its toiling millions who rejects this
munificent offer? He is worked and taxed there to his utmost endurance,
or pressed into military service. He has the right to _work_, to
_fight_, and _pay taxes_, but not to vote. Unschooled ignorance is his
lot and that of his descendants. If a farmer, he works and improves the
land of others, in constant terror of rent day, the landlord, and
eviction. Indeed, the annual rent of a single acre in England exceeds
the price--$10 (L2. 0. 16)--payable for the ownership in fee simple of
the entire homestead of 160 acres, granted him here by the government.
For centuries that are past, and for all time to come, there, severe
toil, poverty, ignorance, the workhouse, or low wages, impressment, and
disfranchisement, would seem to be his lot. Here, freedom, competence,
the right of suffrage, the homestead farm, and free schools for his
children.

In selecting these homestead farms, the emigrant can have any
temperature, from St. Petersburg to Canton. He can have a cold, a
temperate, or a warm climate, and farming or gardening, grazing or
vintage, varied by fishing or hunting. He can raise wheat, rye, Indian
corn, oats, rice, indigo, cotton, tobacco, cane or maple sugar and
molasses, sorghum, wool, peas and beans, Irish or swe