A Brief Introduction to Agrarianism
by Ryan Setliff

In American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia, from ISI Books, contributor Jeremy Beer notes:

Agrarianism posits that the practices associated with the agricultural life are particularly—and in some cases uniquely—well-suited to yield important personal, social, and political goods. The precise character of these goods—and the respective roles of government, society, and individuals in procuring them—varies according to which school of agrarian thought one wishes to consider.¹

Beer adds,

John Taylor of Caroline, Thomas Jefferson, and their fellow Old Whigs, such as Edmund Ruffin, self-consciously sought to retrieve the classical agrarian tradition represented by Hesiod, Cato the Elder, Varro, and Vergil, who like them were concerned about the relationship between politics and farming. These ancient thinkers celebrated the personal and civic virtues associated with farming—economic independence, willingness to engage in hard work, rural sturdiness, hatred of tyranny—that the old Whig founders saw themselves as protecting through the Revolution.²