30 



estate is given to one person in a family, for the purpose of 

 having it kept intact and accumulate, does away substantially 

 with the relief the laws for the distribution of estates of 

 deceased persons might otherwise afford. The great wealth in 

 the city of Boston has already passed into the hands of a 

 small portion of its inhabitants. Eighty-five per cent, of the 

 men who arc assessed pay only a poll tax. This wealth is in 

 the hands of about fifteen percent, of the persons assessed, 

 and the larger part of it is in the hands of a small percentage 

 of this fifteen per cent. Boston is doubtless a fair represen- 

 tation of the other cities of the country. It is no satisfactory 

 answer to this condition of affairs to say that such has always 

 been the case. Where it has been the case a select class has 

 governed, and the masses have been held in subjection by 

 force. But the intelligent masses have the power in this coun- 

 try and they will finally use it to overthrow whatever form of 

 despotism may oppress them. While the farmers own the 

 lands they cultivate, as is now the case, they will act as the 

 great conservative force to preserve the peace of the country ; 

 but when the great mass of the cultivators of the soil are but 

 tenants, the season of violence is rapidly approaching. It is 

 for the farmers to say whether they will tolerate a policy which 

 will bring about such a result as I have contemplated. Out of 

 4,008,907 farms in 1880, 2,984,306 were cultivated by their 

 owners, and 702,244 were worked on shares, a large percent- 

 age of the latter being in the recent slaveholding states, where 

 the freedmcn prefer to work on shares rather than on wages, 

 and where the large plantations are being divided, which is 

 having a most beneficial effect upon that section of the Union, 

 and will have a powerful tendency to preserve the peace of the 

 Union. The South is now a great conservative force in the 



