16 



right to annul the charters granted by it, and to regulate the 

 exercise of their powers, unless she has parted with that right 

 by the terms of the acts creating them. Massachusetts has 

 not done this but in a very few intances indeed, therefore 

 nearly all the corporations in the State exist only at the will of 

 the law-making power. 



The power of the State, which has been invoked to create 

 this abnormal and ruinous condition of affairs of which I have 

 spoken, ought to be successfully invoked to stay its progress 

 and remedy the evil already done. 



And upon the farmers of the country must we depend for 

 this needed legislation. They experience all of the evils oi 

 this class legislation, without deriving any benefit from it. 



THE DIGNITY OP LABOE. 



It is of the first importance to the farmer to have such a 

 policy pursued as will make labor most honorable and profit- 

 able. The farmer is an independent laborer. May he always 

 remain such; no combination of capital dictates what pay he 

 shall receive or the hours he shall labor. He is a freeman in- 

 deed, and desires that man as man shall be recognized as of 

 more value than capital. If there is to be any dictation, let it 

 be that of labor to capital, rather than that of capital to labor. 

 When capital can dictate its terms to labor it owns it, and 

 man becomes a slave of capital, which will not, unless com- 

 pelled, compensate him for his labor beyond the smallest sum 

 upon which life can be sustained and strength obtained suffi- 

 cient for labor. Capital is vigilant, watchful, aggressive and 

 arbitrary, and will bring the laborer into the most abject 

 slavery unless prevented by efficient measures. Although the 

 farmer has not yet directly felt the blasting influence upon his 

 rights and liberties of the centralization of wealth, still, it will 



