With all the advantages Providence has given us in this great country, with the pure and simple republic bequeathed to us by the heroes and statesmen of Seventy-Six, we ought to be a prosperous and happy people. But, with the blighting curse of oppressive monopolies fastened upon us, upheld by bought legislation and strengthened by the decisions of judges and courts, who, from education, occupation, and sympathy with the oppressors of the people, or from baser motives, have become the special guardians of the monopolists, the laboring and producing classes find it difficult to live, and, in many instances, are being reduced to absolute want. The farmer has abundant harvests, but their value is absorbed in oppressive charges for transportation to market, and he is bound down with onerous and unequal taxes until his labor has ceased to be remunerative. While this is true of most industrial pursuits, the manufacturer, protected by the government, the moneyed men of Wall street, who operate in gold and stocks, and the railroad men, who are protected by the decisions of the courts of the country, all amass princely fortunes--the result of special privileges bestowed upon them. As a necessary consequence, the interests of the country are being divided. A moneyed "nobility" are arrayed against the laboring and producing classes. Special privileges, at war with republican institutions, are granted them; their wealth is virtually exempted from taxation, and they are fast becoming the governing power, while those who produce the wealth of the country are compelled to spend their strength and devote their lives to the business of adding to the wealth of their oppressors. It may be asked why this state of things exists. There are two reasons for it. First, the indifference manifested by the people to the affairs of the government; their willingness to allow others to direct and control the affairs of the nation, while they devote their time to their own personal interests, seemingly forgetful that they have any interest in national affairs, or in the administration of their own state government, and permitting those who now oppress them to shape legislation, and to obtain those grants and privileges which have now become the means of their oppression. The second cause is the disposition of those in power to override and disregard constitutional restrictions. During the civil war the constitution possessed no restrictive force. The law of necessity governed; the personal will of those in office was the supreme law. Acts of congress were passed with direct reference to a state of war, and decisions of courts were controlled by the same causes. With the return of peace these laws remained unrepealed; the decisions of courts remained unreversed; constitutional restrictions were deemed irksome and of little moment. Laws remained on our statute book which contravened the plain provisions of the constitution, and the decisions of courts have continued in the same channel, until the great charter of our civil liberty, has become obsolete, and the personal opinions of courts, like the edicts of a monarch, have become the supreme law. Under this species of legislation, and this class of decisions, these great oppressors of the country have grown up until their power is superior to that of all other interests, and not unfrequently defies the law. The first great reform to be effected is to re-establish the supremacy of the constitution, and to demand of courts and legislators a strict observance of its provisions. When this is effected, the rights of the states and the people will be protected. The courts of the United States, and all other departments of the government, must remember that in our republican system the federal government is limited and restricted to the exercise of such powers as are expressly delegated to it, and that all attempts to confer special charters and privileges upon private companies are usurpations. They must remember that we have no government with kingly prerogatives; that in a republic the people retain control of the _purse_ and _sword_, and that the liberties of the people, the equality of all before the law, as well as the perpetuation of republican institutions, are in the care and keeping of the sovereign people.