ABSTRACT
Acquisition of property is our national characteristic. For this, we emulate the dawn, we exhaust the lamp; no weary toil, the unhealthfulness of no occupation, deters us; the distance of no voyage stays us; and no postponement of the result, limits our perseverance or diminishes our ardor. We calculate receipts among fractions, and watch outgoes to the verge of parsimony; we marry at an early age, in Scripture expectation of a helpmeet, to get a living; we estimate our children by a money standard, and bound our duty to a fortune for them.
