Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1873-06-26
customers pay for our products, for their

customers pay for our products, for their
transportation.
Under the false and specious pretense of de-
veloping the country, they have obtained enor-
and now retard rather than develop its settle
ment, by the high prices charged for such
land
They have converted the bonds fraudulently
obtained from the Government, into great
corruption fund, with which they are enabled
to bride and control Legislatures, and subvert
every branch of Government, to their own base
and sordid purposes.
They have increased the already intolerable
burden of taxation which the people have to
endure compared with which the tea and
stamp-tax, which precipitated the war of the
Revolution, seem utterly insigniicant), by the
appropriation of money from the public Trea-
selves by evading and violating the express
provisions Of their charters.
In every stage of these expressions we have
petitiOned our Legislatures for redress, in the
most humble terms. Our repeated petitions
have been answered only by silence, or at
tempts to frame laws that shall seem to meet
our wants, but that are, in fact, only legal
snare for courts to disagree upon, and for cor
porations to disObey.
Nor have we been wanting in attempts to
obtain redress through Congress. We have
warned them from time to time of these vari-
GUS and repeated encroachments upon our
rights; we have reminded them Of the circum-
stances of our emigration and settlement here;
we have appealed to them as the administra-
tors of free and impartial government, to
protect us from these encroachments, which,
If continued, would inevitably end in the utter
destruction Of those liberties for which our
fathers gave their lives, and the reinstatement
of privileged classes and an aristocracy OF
wealth worse than that from which the War
of the Revolution freed US. They, too, have
been deaf to the voice of justice and Of duty
We must therefore acquiesce in the necessity
which compels us to denounce their criminal
Indifference to our wrongs, and hold them as
we hold our Legislatures-enemies to the pro-
ducer-to the monopolists, friends.
We, therefore, the producers Of this State,
in our several counties assembled, on this an
niversary of that day that gave birth to a
nation of freemen, and a Government OF which,
despite the corruptions of its officers, we are
still SO justly proud, appealing to the Supreme
Judge of the world for the rectitude OF our
intentions, do solemnly declare that we will
use all lawful and peaceable means TO Tree
ourselves from the tyranny OF monopoly, and
that we will never cease our efforts for reform
until every department Of our Government
gives token that the reign of licentious ex-
travagance is over, and something OF the
purity, honesty, and frugality with which our
fathers inaugurated it has taken place.
That to this end we declare ourselves abso-
lutely free and independent OF all past politi-
cal connections and that we shall give our
suffrage only to such men for office, from the
lowest officer in the State to the President OF
the United States, rs We have good reason to
believe will use their best endeavors to the
promotion of these ends and for the support
of this declaration, with a firm reliance in
Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to
each other our lives, our fortunes, and our
Sacrod honor THE FARMERS,