ecommendation?"

"That the Rensselaers should receive such a sum from each tenant as
would produce an interest equal to the value of the present rent. Now,
in the first place, here is a citizen who has got as much property as he
wants, and who wishes to live for other purposes than to accumulate.
This property is not only invested to his entire satisfaction, as
regards convenience, security and returns, but also in a way that is
connected with some of the best sentiments of his nature. It is property
that has descended to him through ancestors for two centuries; property
that is historically connected with his name--on which he was born, on
which he has lived, and on which he has hoped to die; property, in a
word, that is associated with all the higher feelings of humanity.
Because some interloper, perhaps, who has purchased an interest in one
of his farms six months before, feels an _aristocratic_ desire not to
have a landlord, and wishes to own a farm in fee, that in fact he has no
other right to than he gets through his lease, the governor of the great
State of New York throws the weight of his official position against the
old hereditary owner of the soil, by solemnly suggesting, in an official
document that is intended to produce an effect on public opinion, that
he should sell that which he does not wish to sell, but wishes to keep,
and that at a price which I conceive is much below its true pecuniary
value. We have liberty with a vengeance, if these are some of its
antics!"

"What makes the matter worse, is the fact that each of the Rensselaers
has a house on his estate, so placed as to be convenient to look after
his interests; which interests he is to be at the trouble of changing,
leaving him his house on his hands, because, forsooth, one of the
parties to a plain and equitable bargain wishes to make better
conditions than he covenanted for. I wonder what his Excellency proposes
that the landlords shall do with their money when they get it? Buy new
estates, and build new houses, of which to be dispossessed when a new
set of tenants may choose to cry out against aristocracy, and
demonstrate their own love for democracy by wishing to pull others down
in order to shove themselves into their places?"

"You are right again, Hugh; but it is a besetting vice of America to
regard life as all means, and as having no end, in a worldly point of
view. I dare say men may be found among us who regard it as highly
presumi