favour of the landlords?"

"I can see no reason but the fact that the Rensselaers were only two,
and that the disaffected tenants were probably two thousand. With all
the cry of aristocracy, and feudality, and nobility, neither of the
Rensselaers, by the letter of the law, has one particle more of
political power, or political right, than his own coachman or footman,
if the last be a white man; while, in practice, he is in many things
getting to be less protected."

"Then you think, sir, that this matter has gained force from the
circumstance that so many votes depend on it?"

"Out of all question. Its success depends on the violations of
principles that we have been so long taught to hold sacred, that nothing
short of the over-ruling and corrupting influence of politics would dare
to assail them. If there were a landlord to each farm, as well as a
tenant, universal indifference would prevail as to the griefs of the
tenants; and if two to one tenant, universal indignation at their
impudence."

"Of what particular griefs do the tenants complain?"

"You mean the Rensselaer tenants, I suppose? Why, they _complain_ of
such covenants as they can, though their deepest affliction is to be
found in the fact that they do not own other men's lands. The Patroon
had quarter sales on many of his farms--those that were let in the last
century."

"Well, what of that? A bargain to allow of quarter sales is just as fair
as any other bargain."

"It is fairer, in fact, than most bargains, when you come to analyze it,
since there is a very good reason why it should accompany a perpetual
lease. Is it to be supposed that a landlord has no interest in the
character and habits of his tenants? He has the closest interest in it
possible, and no prudent man should let his lands without holding some
sort of control over the assignment of leases. Now, there are but two
modes of doing this; either by holding over the tenant a power through
his interests, or a direct veto dependent solely on the landlord's
will."

"The last would be apt to raise a pretty cry of tyranny and feudality in
America!"

"Pretty cries on such subjects are very easily raised in America. More
people join in them than understand what they mean. Nevertheless, it is
quite as just, when two men bargain, that he who owns every right in the
land before the bargain is made, should retain this right over his
property, which he consents to part with only with limitations, a