Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1850-01-05

Editors had never read in connexion with the Mes
sage, the Report of that Member of the Cabinet
whose business alone il was to treat of that parti-
cular question.
The next object of attack by the " Union is the
recommendation of the establishment of an, Agri-
cultural Bureau. This measure the !" Union
opposes, because, if it understands the Message,
that Bureau is to be charged not only with the
material interests Of labor but the education Of that
class of our countrymen." But the idea of such a
Bureau, and even the recommendation of II to Con-
gress is almost as old as the Constitution ITSELF It
is just ffty-three years ago since PresidentWA
INeToN, in the last Of his annual Messages to Con-
gress, recommended the same measure, in language
which certainly has lost none Of its force by the
time which has intervened.
"It will not be doubted" said he, @ that, with
reference either to individual or national welfare
2 Agriculture is of primary importance. In proper
2 tion nations advance in population, and other
: circumstances of maturity, this truth becomes
more apparent, and renders the cultivation of the
soil more and more an object of public patronage.
Institutions for promoting it grow up, supported
: by the public purse. Among the means which
have been employed to this end, none have been
attended with greater success than the establish
ment of Boards, composed Of proper characters,
charged with collecting and diffusing information
/. and enabled, by premiums and small pecuniary
aids to encourage and assist spirit of discovery
and improvement This species of establishment
z contributes doubly to the increase of improve
ment; by stimulating to enterprise and expert
ment and by drawing to common centre the
results, every where, of individual skill and OBJ
servation, and spreading them thence over the
whole nation. Experience, accordingly, has
shown that they are Uery cheap Instruments Of
immense National benefits"
It can never be unsafe, and seldom unwise, to
follow in the track Of this great statesman and prac-
tical man. But the Union" does not believe that
the People desire any such supervision of their
our contemporaries at Baltimore that this recon-
mendation by the President will be cordially re-
sponded to by the Farmers Of the Country" We
take the word Of our Baltimore contemporary, as
Hamlet would have done the ghosts :" for thou
sand pounds Most truly he says that Agri-
culture is the most important interest Of the Ma
tion and il would be strange indeed ifit were the
only one neglected BY the Government
"This Recommendation however, says the
Union, !" with those which are TO follow in future
| years, shows clearly that the Home Department
is the great lever Of concentration in this Govern
ment, and that it cannot be too soon repealed.
Not possessing the faculty Of seeing things that
are by no possibility discernble, we do not know
what Providence has in store for US Sin future
years." Nor, until the . Union gives us some
more definite idea of its meaning than is afforded
by the phrase of the great lever Of concentration
in this Government" as applied TO the Home De.
partment we are and shall be, decidedly opposed to
the early "repeal'' Of that Department, which that
journal proposes. So far as we are informed. the
establishments Of the Home Department was one Of
the most wise and provident measures Of the last
Administration We are willing, if the " Union
is not to let it stand long enough lat eas for us to
see hosc it works, 8
The part Of the Message which is treated most
seriously by the Union," is that which recon-
mends the execution of certain Internal hnproUe-
ments, and system Of surveys to test the utility
or practicability of such works. millions upon
millions viii be expended says the Union, g if
the system be carried OUT We are not of that
class of politicians our readers very well know
such as, in our day, we have seen in the Govern
ment--who would interdct such measures as the
| payment of just debts of the Government because
all the public treasure is needed for the prosecution
of war; nor would we for that reason, nor indeed
for any otherreason equally feeble or preposerous
refuse public appropriations of money for objects
at once just and beneficial great regions Of coun
try hitherto inaccessible, through the nggardly
policy Of the Government, 10 any of the direct
benefits which wise Legislation by the General
Government has hitherto showered plentfully on
more favored districts Of our country. The
objects of appropriations OF public money to which
we refer, and which we regard as pre-eminently
just and beneficial, are those of Internal Improve
ment; and the regions Of country from which
such appropriations have been hitherto for many
years withheld by the exercise of the Veto
Power alone are the Great West and Northwest,
with their vast inland seas and lines of iniercom-
municaton by land and water. We rejoice that
we have at length Conservative well as Con-
stiutional President that the ban Of interdict upon
this policy has been raised and that the presump-
ton Of no one individual will ever hereafter be al
lowed to s,iie policy which every interest Of the
Nation unites TO recommend, and which the ne
elected rights of the part of our country rugged
with mountains, interspersed with lakes, and inter-
sected by navgable streams, irresistibly demand
the hands of Congress. n a
But does the 6 Union reflect that it is not
only President TAy1op To whom IL minutes the