exclusively, a war upon the first principle of popular government--the
rights of the people. Conclusive evidence of this is found in the most
grave and maturely considered public documents, as well as in the
general tone of the insurgents. In those documents we find the
abridgment of the existing right of suffrage and the denial to the
people of all right to participate in the selection of public officers
except the legislative boldly advocated, with labored arguments to prove
that large control of the people in government is the source of all
political evil. Monarchy itself is sometimes hinted at as a possible
refuge from the power of the people.

In my present position I could scarcely be justified were I to omit
raising a warning voice against this approach of returning despotism.

It is not needed nor fitting here that a general argument should be made
in favor of popular institutions, but there is one point, with its
connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief
attention. It is the effort to place _capital_ on an equal footing with,
if not above, _labor_ in the structure of government. It is assumed that
labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors
unless some-body else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces
him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best
that capital shall _hire_ laborers, and thus induce them to work by
their own consent, or _buy_ them and drive them to it without their
consent. Having proceeded so far, it is naturally concluded that all
laborers are either _hired_ laborers or what we call slaves. And
further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in
that condition for life.

Now there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed, nor