There are no more of esquires and yeomen in this country than there
are of knights and nobles, though the quiet manner in which the
transition from the old to the new state of things has been made,
has not rendered the public mind very sensible to the changes. But,
recurring to the class, which is a positive thing and consequently
ought to have a name of some sort or other, we do not belong to
those that can sound its praises without some large reservations on
the score of both principles and manners. Least of all, are we
disposed to set up these yeomen as a privileged class, like certain
of the titular statesmen of the country, and fall down and worship a
calf--not a golden one by the way--of our own setting up. We can see
citizens in these yeomen, but not princes, who are to be especially
favored by laws made to take from others to bestow on them. But
making allowances for human infirmities, the American freeholder
belongs to a class that may justly hold up its head among the
tillers of the earth. He improves daily, under the influence of
beneficent laws, and if he don't get spoiled, of which there is some
danger, in the eagerness of factions to secure his favor, and
through that favor his VOTE--if he escape this danger, he will ere
long make a reasonably near approach to that being, which the tongue
of the flatterer would long since have persuaded him he had already
more than got to be.
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