J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur writes Letters from an American Farmer mostly in the voice of James, a fictional Pennsylvanian in the 1770s. Repeatedly in the letters, James asserts that America offers more freedom than anywhere else on Earth, and that the life of the American farmer exhibits that freedom in a unique way. (It’s important to note that James speaks for the European, property-owning majority and not for enslaved people or the very poor.) The freedom of the farmer’s life, James proposes, is made possible by the American colonies’ minimal government. In Letter II, James attributes much of his happiness to the fact that he owes “nothing but a peppercorn to my country,” letting him focus on his family and neighbors instead of a distant government. Farmed land is the foundation of American “rights; […] our freedom, our power as citizens,” he adds. Essentially, James insists that because farmers work for themselves and their families instead of to enrich a feudal lord, they are motivated to succeed, they have a stake in their community’s and country’s success, and they are much happier than people in other countries who own little or nothing and lack a voice. Because Americans have the opportunity to become citizens and have a say in their own government, countless downtrodden Europeans risk their lives to settle in America.
At the same time, James doesn’t believe in unbridled freedom. He claims that people who live on America’s frontiers, because they’re so distant from seats of government, tend to be too idle and conflict-driven. And because they hunt to survive instead of becoming disciplined farmers, they suffer from weaker character. This suggests that there’s such a thing as too much freedom, and that virtue is necessary to maintain freedom in the long run. It’s also worth noting that, at the end of the Letters, James is in doubt about the ultimate fate of the American experiment. Ironically, James fears that when American colonists assert their freedom by fighting their British rulers, his cherished freedom is threatened, and he considers joining an Indian community to maintain some semblance of that freedom. He believes that anything more than a mild, hands-off government—whether British or American—will impede the freedoms, success, and happiness of ordinary citizens. The Letters’ overall impression, though, is that such a government is hard to maintain, and thus freedom is a fragile balance.
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Freedom and Government Quotes in Letters from an American Farmer
Here we have in some measure regained the ancient dignity of our species: our laws are simple and just; we are a race of cultivators; our cultivation is unrestrained; and therefore everything is prosperous and flourishing. For my part, I had rather admire the ample barn of one of our opulent farmers, who himself felled the first tree in his plantation and was the first founder of his settlement, than study the dimensions of the temple of Ceres.
Were I in Europe, I should be tired with perpetually seeing espaliers, plashed hedges, and trees dwarfed into pygmies. Do let Mr. F. B. see on paper a few American wild-cherry trees, such as Nature forms them here in all her unconfined vigour, in all the amplitude of their extended limbs and spreading ramifications—let him see that we are possessed with strong vegetative embryos.
[…] where is that station which can confer a more substantial system of felicity than that of an American farmer possessing freedom of action, freedom of thoughts, ruled by a mode of government which requires but little from us? I owe nothing but a peppercorn to my country, a small tribute to my king, with loyalty and due respect; I know no other landlord than the lord of all land, to whom I owe the most sincere gratitude.
This formerly rude soil has been converted by my father into a pleasant farm, and in return, it has established all our rights; on it is founded our rank, our freedom, our power as citizens, our importance as inhabitants of such a district. These images, I must confess, I always behold with pleasure and extend them as far as my imagination can reach; for this is what may be called the true and the only philosophy of an American farmer.
It is my bees, however, which afford me the most pleasing and extensive themes; let me look at them when I will, their government, their industry, their quarrels, their passions, always present me with something new[.]
Here are no aristocratical families, no courts, no kings, no bishops, no ecclesiastical dominion, […] no great manufactures employing thousands, no great refinements of luxury. The rich and the poor are not so far removed from each other as they are in Europe. Some few towns excepted, we are all tillers of the earth, from Nova Scotia to West Florida.
The American is a new man, who acts upon new principles; he must therefore entertain new ideas and form new opinions. From involuntary idleness, servile dependence, penury, and useless labour, he has passed to toils of a very different nature, rewarded by ample subsistence. This is an American.
Yet I have a spot in my view, where none of these occupations are performed, which will, I hope, reward us for the trouble of inspection; but though it is barren in its soil, insignificant in its extent, inconvenient in its situation, deprived of materials for building, it seems to have been inhabited merely to prove what mankind can do when happily governed!
After all, is it not better to be possessed of a single whale-boat or a few sheep pastures, to live free and independent under the mildest government, in a healthy climate, in a land of charity and benevolence, than to be wretched as so many are in Europe, possessing nothing but their industry; tossed from one rough wave to another; engaged either in the most servile labours for the smallest pittance or fettered with the links of the most irksome dependence, even without the hopes of rising?
I am conscious that I was happy before this unfortunate revolution. I feel that I am no longer so; therefore I regret the change. This is the only mode of reasoning adapted to persons in my situation. If I attach myself to the mother country, which is 3,000 miles from me, I become what is called an enemy to my own region; if I follow the rest of my countrymen, I become opposed to our ancient masters: both extremes appear equally dangerous to a person of so little weight and consequence as I am, whose energy and example are of no avail.
The innocent class are always the victims of the few […] It is for the sake of the great leaders on both sides that so much blood must be spilt; that of the people is counted as nothing. Great events are not achieved for us, though it is by us that they are principally accomplished, by the arms, the sweat, the lives of the people.
Must I then, in order to be called a faithful subject, coolly and philosophically say it is necessary for the good of Britain that my children’s brains should be dashed against the walls of the house in which they were reared; that my wife should be stabbed and scalped before my face; that I should be either murthered or captivated; or that for greater expedition we should all be locked up and burnt to ashes as the family of the B—n was?
You may therefore, by means of anticipation, behold me under the wigwam; I am so well acquainted with the principal manners of these people that I entertain not the least apprehension from them. I rely more securely on their strong hospitality than on the witnessed compacts of many Europeans.
