The Republican journal., 1871-01-26
SPEECH OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

dldate for Governor OF Massachusetts, and is well
worth Il careful perusal:
And next we come to the land-grants. Do you
weary, my fellow-citizens, of this review Of your
blessings! Bear with me yet moment, and let
me display perhaps the most brilliant OF the whole
lot. The Republican party has given away two
hundred millions OF acres OF your lands to railway
corporations, and in imperial tracts. You find it
difficult to get an idea of such mass. Well, France
and Prussia are making Il terrible noise just now,
convulsng Europe and America with the gigantic
struggle of eighty millions of people. The whole
territory of both is about large the empire that
Republican Congress has given away, not to in
dividuals-that would have been bad enough-but
to corporations, which is far worse. The law tells
have Immortality. The man dies and his heirs in
herit of him, and the land is divided and returns
gradually to the people. But the creature a the
Legislature lives on and grasps in its dead hand
pose these grants are rapidly and cheaply sold to
the people, look at one case for all. Twenty years
ago Congress gave 2595O53 acres of land to the Ill
inos Central Railway Company. At that time any
poor settler could have taken up that land III home
stead lots at $l.25 an acre. Since that time, the
corporation has sold land to the amount of some
thirty millions Of dollars, and to-day it holds more
than half the whole grant at prices ranging up to
fifty dollars an acre. Can this be republican as
sembly which has thus been finging away the peo-
ples land with such spendthrit hand? Why,
had always been taught that the ownership of land
by very large proportion of all the people was the
best safeguard of free institutions, and to that end
republic should furnish homesteads cheap. The
sturdy Independence on which such institutions
rest, and which it is their highest function to en-
gender, must root in the earth. Nothing is 50 con-
seryative and nothing more Democratic than a
general ownership of land. The public lands were
sacred trust to furnish homes to coming millions,
where each man, erect and independent. might seek
his own welfare unhampered by an otiicious gov
ernment, and unhindered by landlords. so long as
that safety-vave is open the rapid increase OF the
population bodies no ill to the republic The lnev-
toIll nt thn I1OIlpSS.
the reclamatons of the hungry upon the full, which
end in anarchy and authority, are indefinitely post
pOned. Monopoly of land goes hand in hand with
the proetarat and the army A wise government
would have guarded these lands as the very secret
of liberty. True, there is land enough left to last
our time, and this generation may not have to face
the reckoning, but, none the less, it will come.
The aristocracy of Rome thought it n very shrewd
thing to take up all the public lands In Italy at nom
ina rents, but when Tiberius Graccus required at
the hands Of their descendants the peoples lands for
the peoples use, they found at last that their greed
had cost them dear, for it cost them in the end
their lives and their liberties The civil wars and
Cesar were the of their rents. In the face
OF such facts | merely add, as an insignificant de-
tail, beneath the notice OF great people, that be-
sides these enormous landed estates you have given
away to railroads some SG4 900 900 in cash OF
bonds, when you will have to pay, Now, my
fe0W-citiZens, these facts by themselves are Sc
rious, certainly. They seem to show reckless and
extravagant method in legislation. But if they
stood alone, and if they concealed nothing behind
them, they would only mean that you must work
harder and pay more taxes. But they ito not stand
alone. Behind them looms up the gaunt and glgah'
tic form of the great railroad ring, holding youl
government between its iron bands. The gentle
men who manage this combination possess forty
five thousand miles of rail, worth two millions Of
dollars, over which they carry one hundred ano
twenty-five millions tons of freight, and by Whlcl
| they earn four hundred million dollars yearly. Ii
ten years more they will have perhaps twice IL
much power. Certainly the size and power of this
lei tn n
| is going. And now, my friends, If add recon
sruction to the long line of trophies OF the Repnb
lican party, believe may dismiss this part OF my
hOmily. 1t is necessary to touch upon reconstrlic
ton, because it is largely through that and the
powers developed by the war that we must trace
the whole scheme and policy of which lSolatet
measures are only detached parts. AS Alexander
Hamilton said that we needed a war to nerve The
Executive" only by the civil war could the al
lacity and authority have accrued to Congress
which rendered possible the later policy of the Re
publican party. That policy is the direction of pub
lie affairs by the hands of and in the interest of on
ganIzed and associated capital For the civil wal
acted AS universal solvent, reducing Constitution
States, parties, laws and men to struggling mass
destitute oi organic law, save the deepest OF al
laws, the law of self-preservation. Congress nat
urally carried on the government in the emergency
by an exercise OF that law Which we called the
war power" and from that day to this it has been
like all bodies OF men who grasp power, very loal
to give it up
Now the ''war power" is nothing bat force; the
right of conquest, merely; and when Congress
came to deal with the difficult question Of restora
ton, it the easiest and peasantest way to use
the power they had rather than recur to the com
paratiyey calm and dilatory and coorless processes
of constitutional Cancellation. Force, therefore
applied or implied has been the whole inspiration
of reconstruction. Accordingly the great body OF
whites in the seeding States were held alien en-
emes, and they are still regarded by the law as
mere paroed prisoners OF war, unit to be trusted
with any share in the government, and dangerous
to public safety. Hence the distranchisement of all
the able men and most of the educated men in near
ly one-half of the land. This combined with the
sudden enfranchisement of very large class OF
probably the most ignorant constituency in the
world, has resulted in the upheaya to places OF
trust and honor of scum so foul that il turns the
stomach of even the most "loyal." This modern
generations of Southern statesmen has furnished
just such tools as ambitious and greedy factions
quire. They We're both flcile and cheap. Con-
scious that they have stake in the country they
represent, and reflect nothing but the most odous
element In the entire Confederate calamity, they
must prepare a refuge speedily from the wrath to
come. Hence it is that monopolies have settled
like Nightmares upon the American people. The
South, which once sent such men as George Wash
ington and Thomas Jefferson and James Madison
and John Marshall and Henry Clay and John {,
Calhoun and Andrew Jackson to the national coun-
ellis, is now represented by such gentlemen as John
G, Abbott, Frederick A. SAWYER, Willard Warner,
the notorious Brownlow, or the martyred White
more! The South is dead and lifeless. The best
men meet your reproaches, 1T the "recheh condi-
ton of their State governments with 1T Is no al
fair of mine | am Il rebel and you wont let me
be anything else' The words of an ancient histo-
ran applied to Gaul, after its conquest by Caesar
apply SO closely to the South that pray your in
diligence if | repeat them. "I4et the reader con-
ceive the languid and bloodless figure of Gau just
escaped from 4 burning fever and Inflammation OF
her vital parts; let him remark how thin and pale
she is; how helpless aud nerveless she lies; how
she fears to move even limb lest she should bring
on worse relapse. The thirst that consumes her
is her impotence at the demand for pledges Of her
perpetual servtude; liberty is the sweet cold draft
! for which she burns; she rayes for the waters
which were stolen from her. The upshot of the
whole matter then we find to be that capital, with
machine which the people in their extremity built
to subdue restive minority and turned it to its
| own profit.
The railroads, banks, furnaces, mills, mines, and
the multitude of the lesser daughters of the horse
leech have for six or eight years past ruled the
people of the United States through the distorted
yet familiar forms of their old frame of government
as absolutely ever the landed interest of England
ruled the United Kingdom. The entire financial
policy of Congress has been dictated by organized
and associated capital Now, my friends, do not
suppose | am about to abuse these capitalists or
rail at capital, for am not. l admire many Of the
men, and we should all starve without capital.
Take them through, they are the most thrifty,
shrewd, Industrious, energetic and audaciOus men
in the community. They control you, IS they make
their money, by their capacity and skill. They are
not so much to blame for taking what you like to
give, though perhaps they might have little more
moderation. But you are fifty to their one, and
outvote them when you like. Ii you like their way,
why, vote with them; if you don't why. your
| remedy is plain-vote the other way. | think it
very likely that they honestly think that their in
terests and the public interest are identical, and
it may be sos shall be satisfied if you accept this
fact-that ography (using the word in its liter
al and not in its offensive Sense) has for some time
controlled the machinery of legislation, and an