like any other articles of merchandise. While we do not claim that all public officers were pure prior to the legislative creation of monopolies we have been examining, we do claim that previous to that sad departure, honesty was the rule, and not the exception. It was when congress entered upon the business of chartering railroad companies, donating public lands to them, and voting them money from the public treasury, that the rule changed; and when, in addition, congressmen became principal owners and directors in these companies, while still retaining their seats in congress, they placed themselves upon the record as unfaithful to their trust, and struck a blow at public morality which will be fatal to our popular government, unless resisted by the whole moral power of the nation.

And here we might well pause and ask, what security have the people for the continuance of republican government? These gigantic corporations are in their nature anti-republican; they tend to a centralization of power; they compel the people to submit to their demands; they are under the protection of congress, under whose special legislation they are permitted to disregard state laws; their ramifications extend throughout the country; their artifices and money control the votes of the people; they elect their friends to both the senate and house; they organize and send strong bodies of men to the lobby of congress and state legislatures, well supplied with money to obtain the passage of laws in their interest, and to prevent such legislation as would be detrimental to them, and in favor of the people; they have their friends and emissaries in every department of the government, and throughout the country, and they exercise a controlling influence not only at Washington, but at almost all the seats of state government. The offices filled by appointment of the executive and confirmation of the senate are too often the agencies of this same influence. We would not be understood as saying that the president acts corruptly in these appointments; we mean that the influences that secure many of the presidential nominations are the same as used by these corporations in the election of their senators and representatives. The appointment of judges of the supreme court of the United States has, in at least two instances, within

the last few years, been made through the influence and in the interest of these monopolies. These corporations are also represented in the cabinet. It is well understood that the removal of Attorney-General Ackerman, and the appointment of his successor, was done by these corporate influences. The fact that the secretary of the interior, to whom reports should have been regularly made of the progress and condition of the Pacific railroad, was silent, while private fortunes were being fraudulently taken from the public treasury, proves that he also was under the same influence. It can be accepted as an established fact, that all the departments of the government are to a great extent controlled by corporations and combinations of speculators whose interests are adverse to those of the people, and the result is, that statutes are enacted, executive officers appointed, and decisions of court rendered in the favor of these powerful classes, while the rights guaranteed to the people by the constitution are disregarded.

The influence of corporations is also powerful in the administration of state governments. While no such gigantic monopolies as the Pacific railroad have been organized in any state yet, either by special charters granted by state legislatures, or under general incorporation laws, railroad corporations in large numbers have been organized, and by combining their influence have obtained control of most of the state governments; they have been granted special and exclusive privileges, and by the use of money and patronage have been able to control state conventions, state legislatures and state courts. As a logical result, the people are taxed, while railroad companies are practically free from taxation; subsidies to corporations are authorized and declared to be constitutional, and the people are obliged to submit to rates of charges for transportation of freight that amount to a confiscation of the farm products of the country. We need not enter into a history of state grants to railroad companies, for it is familiar to all; the same corrupt practices incident to national, attend state, legislation. In many instances, corporations have organized under state statutes, or obtained special charters from state legislatures, located their roads, procured local aid, and then obtained from

congress land grants for their roads, and have thus become powerful in the states where they are located, while other companies have built their roads exclusively with the means afforded by local aid voted under state laws, and loans of money or sale of bonds; but in every instance so planning and contriv ing that the entire road shall pass into the exclusive control of a select few, leaving to those who furnished the local aid no rights or privileges in connection with the company or the road, save that of paying extortionate freights and burdensome taxes.

CHAPTER XI.

THE SOLE PURPOSES OF TAXATION.

AXES can only be levied, and collected for public pur

TAX

poses; but all the property of the country can be taxed to its entire value, when the public good requires it. The exigency demanding high rates of taxation is left to the determition of the legislatures of the states, and of the general government No taxes can be legally levied or collected save for the support of the government, state and national, and subject to the restrictions incorporated in the constitution. All other taxes imposed upon the people are unconstitutional, illegal, and oppressive, and should be declared absolutely void. Direct taxation, for the support of the general government, has never been practiced in time of peace. The usual method for raising a sufficient revenue for its support has been by duties, or tariff imposed by acts of congress upon imports. This has always been deemed the best method for raising the revenue necessary for the support of the government. The powers and duties of the general government are limited and restricted by the constitution of the United States; and as its legislative, executive, and judicial powers are thus limited, it follows that its power to impose taxes upon the people is limited in the same manner, and that it can tax for no purpose save for defraying the expense of its different departments in the exercise of the powers delegated by the federal constitution. This conceded, all that can be claimed by those who administer the affairs of the nation, unless they transcend the constitutional limit, is conceded. The power to appropriate the lands or money of the public to private parties or corporations not being found in the constitution, nor implied in any of the granted powers, all such appropriations are usurpations; they are donations of the people's money and property to private corporations and

individuals in violation of the constitutional restrictions; and no authority is vested in congress to tax the people either directly or indirectly, for the purpose of making return of the money and property thus wrongfully taken from them. A private corporation is not a public necessity; its franchises are private property and even if the United States owned the whole of its stock, and took the entire control of its business, it could not become a public corporation for the reason that congress does not possess the power, under the constitution, to create private corporations. The fact that the United States owned the stock and controlled the corporation would not impart to it any of the attributes of sovereignty, but in so far as the general government was interested in the corporation, it would be treated as any other private party, and would be amenable to the same law and subject to the same jurisdiction as private parties or individuals. If the action of the general government can confer none of the attributes of sovereignty upon a private corporation—if it has no constitutional authority to donate lands or money to railroad companies-how can it lawfully collect taxes from the people, either by direct levies, or in duties upon articles of commerce, for the purpose of reimbursing the gov ernment for the lands donated to corporations, or to pay either the principal or interest on the bonds given to these corporations? As well might congress levy a direct tax upon the property of the people for the purpose of donating to a private party sufficient means to build a residence; there is not found in the constitution any warrant for either of such levies. Both alike are unwarranted usurpations of power, not to be justified under any grant of power from the people to the federal government. To admit that the congress of the United States possesses the power to tax the people for any purpose save for the support of the general government, is to admit that the constitution is elastic, subject to any congressional construction, and liable to be used as an instrument for promoting personal and private ends. Congress had no power to vote subsidy bonds to railroad corporations as we have already shown; nor could it release these corporations from the payment of these bonds, and the interest as it accrues, and collect the amount