at the amount raised professedly for the
support of the Government is paid by them as absolutely if added to the
price of the things which supply their daily wants as if it was paid at
fixed periods into the hand of the taxgatherer.

Those who toil for daily wages are beginning to understand that capital,
though sometimes vaunting its importance and clamoring for the
protection and favor of the Government, is dull and sluggish till,
touched by the magical hand of labor, it springs into activity,
furnishing an occasion for Federal taxation and gaining the value which
enables it to bear its burden. And the laboring man is thoughtfully
inquiring whether in these circumstances, and considering the tribute he
constantly pays into the public Treasury as he supplies his daily wants,
he receives his fair share of advantages.

There is also a suspicion abroad that the surplus of our revenues
indicates abnormal and exceptional business profits, which, under the
system which produces such surplus, increase without corresponding
benefit to the people at large the vast accumulations of a few among our
citizens, whose fortunes, rivaling the wealth of the most favored in
antidemocratic nations, are not the natural growth of a steady, plain,
and industrious republic.

Our farmers, too, and those engaged directly and indirectly in supplying
the products of agriculture, see that day by day, and as often as the
daily wants of their households recur, they are forced to pay excessive
and needless taxation, while their products struggle in foreign markets
with the competition of nations, which, by allowing a freer exchange of
productions than we permit, enable their people to sell for prices which
distress the American farmer.

As every patriotic citizen rejoices in the constantly increasing pride
of our people in American citizenship and in the glory of our national
achievements and progress, a sentiment prevails that the leading strings
useful to a nation in its infancy may well be to a great extent
discarded in the present stage of American ingenuity, courage, and
fearless self-reliance; and for the privilege of indulging this
sentiment with true American enthusiasm our citizens are quite willing
to forego an idle surplus in the public Treasury.

And all the people know that the average rate of Federal taxation upon
imports is to-day, in time of peace, but little less, while upon some
articles of necessary consumption it is actually