Cooper's Clarksburg register. [volume] (Clarksburg, Va. [W. Va.]) 1851-1861, 1852-06-09

the axe man, ana naQ seen the lliuuobtAVas
woman struggling with briars and BRAN
bles, the spontaneous growth of q luxurl-
ant soil, and had seen him graphing, with
hardened hand and sharpened mattoek,
with stubbles, stumps and unyielding roots
preparing pasture fields for summer food;
one who had seen the Western farmer fen
cling, ploughing and planting, hoeing and
gathering fields of corn and other grains,
and had seen him moving, curing and
stacking hay for winter food for cattle,
hogs and sheep and had seen him, re-
gardless of summers heat or winters cold,
feeding and tending his flocks and herds,
and then following him to the stock mar
kets of the country, had seen him forced,
by grinding and unequal competition, to
sell at low and ruinous prices the produce
of his incessant labor and patienttoil one
who had ever visited Western Virginia,
and seen things as they really exist, and
was thereby prepared to properly estimate
the labor and toll incident to the rearing
Olive stock, and then looking to the amount
of capital invested and labor expended,
would estimate the small profits realized
at the end of the year, would never have
recognized the picture ofprimitive idleness
and repose drawn by the gentleman, as
applicable to the farmers of that section of
the State and, if the gentleman from
Mecklenburg would make such q visit,
and acquaint himself with the character.
pursuits and sentiments of the people Of
the West, he would not seek to suppress
them by unjust and unequal taxation. l
really acquit the gentleman, however, of
entertaining the design, when he drew
this picture of Western life, to represent
the people of that section as living in a
barbarous and uncivilized state of society.
While think he yet has much to learn
before he can know and properly appreci-
ate the people of the West, he knows too
much for that and have too much con-
fdence in his candor and goodness of
heart to suppose for moment that he
would purposely misrepresent any people
on any subject. He had a position to
maintain, and, in his zeal to maintain this
position, his fancy outstripped his judg-
ment. TO make successful opposition to
this amendment, it became necessary to
show that live stock, considered as the
production of an industrial pursuit, was
not composed of the same clements which
enter into the composition of cereal grains
and tobacco and consequently that live
stock did not bear the same relation to the
Western that cereal grains and tobacco
sustain to the Eastern farmer. This was
most difficult task /; and in order to sue
cessfully accomplish it, he found himself
forced to the desperate cxpedient of assu-
ming that live stock fed and fattened on
the spontaneous productions Of nature,
without the application Of human skill or
human labor and that fitted for sale at
the command of the grazer, of their own
agency, they sought the market and the
slaughter house-and the people of the
West, engaged in this pursuit, led a life
of savage idlcness and repose. He had
specified what elements enter in the COM
position of agricultural productions. He
had said-there must be land to cultivate,
labor to apply to the land, and capital in
vested in provisions, teams and impIc-
ments of husbandry, which political econ
omists denominate " stock" in order to
produce cereal grains and tobacco. Land,
labor and capital, then, are the compo-
nent elements of agricultural productions.
In order to produce live stock, must not
the farmer or grazer have land to cult
vate, labor to apply to the land, and
capital invested in the purchase of stock
to commence with
The conclusion is inevitable, and there
is no means of avoiding it. Live stock
and tobacco, though one does belong to
the animal and the other to the vegetable
kingdom, regarded rs the productions of
industrial pursuits, and regarded as pro-
perty and subjects of taxation for the sup
port of that government which protects
the owners of both in their production,
and in their rights of property in each af-
ter production, being composed of the
same elements, and protected by the same
laws and the same government-must be
controlled and governed by the same equal
laws, subjected to equal governmental
burthens, and enjoy equal exemptions and
equal privileges.
Having, Mr.. Chairman, as humbly
conceive, clearly and conclusively demon
strated that live stock bear the same re-
lation to the grazer or farmer rearing them,
that corn, wheat and tobacco do to the
farmer, who, by different process of APP
plying the same elements to the cultiva-
ton of the soil, produces them and that
live stock for all governmental purposes,
should be, and heretofore has been, trea-
ted of and regarded as agricultural pro-
auctions, l may now, without doing vio-
lence to any argument addressed to the
committee in favor of the exemption of
grain and tobacco, apply them all to this
amendment, and urge them as arguments
in favor of tho exemption of live stock
from taxation.
There is one position, however, which
has been assumed by the friends of the
agricultural exemption, that am not dis
posed to appropriate. The gentleman
from Mecklenburg, (Mr. Goode, urges,
with his usual skill and ability as a deba-