THE FARMERS WAR AGAINST MONOPOLIES. 335 



amass great wealth, while pinching economy barely 

 saves him subsistence and does not keep him from debt. 

 His beliefs, as to the cause of existing evils, and the 

 best remedy, whether correct or not, will soon take the 

 shape of laws. He has the votes. Before that power, 

 legislators drop like leaves shaken by the autumn wind. 

 Governors, politicians of all grades, crush each other in 

 their hurry to seize the new standard. Lawyers who 

 do not forget the Dartmouth College case, already find 

 themselves ineligible to the judiciary. Has not this 

 same generation set its heel upon the Dred Scott 

 decision ? Reverence for judicial precedents is a dam 

 which floods have carried away. Restraints devised by 

 founders of our Government no longer bar the people 

 from their will. We have trusted all power to the 

 majority. If its opinion is in error, we have but one 

 remedy : that freedom of discussion which remains the 

 only safeguard of our institutions." 



