We were agrarian once, and so were our laws
The adjective ‘physiocratic’ describes the belief that the wealth and virtue of nations resides in the cultivation of land, and that agrarian nations are the most contented.
Thomas Jefferson famously wrote to John Jay:
Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bands.
In another letter, he declares:
Man was destined for society. His morality, therefore, was to be formed to this object. He was endowed with a sense of right and wrong, merely relative to this. This sense is as much a part of his nature, as the sense of hearing, seeing, feeling; it is the true foundation of morality … State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, & often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.
In 1794, 90% of congressmen were farmers.
In our present congress, 39% of members are lawyers. Just 1.6% claim farming as previous occupation (compared to less than 1% of Americans).
See more Congressional demographics: Members of 111th Congress
