ANNUAL EXHIBITION—ADDRESSES. 
141 
plundei the people for their joint benefit, than it was to carry 
merchandize for too low a rate to amount to compensation. So 
they consolidated, and now have everything their own way^ 
Various telegraph companies have passed through the same 
experience and reached the same result. Eailroad companies 
are not behind in the wisdom of this, generation, and are now 
bending all their energies to a consolidation which will pre. 
vent competition, and deliver the people bound hand and foot 
into their tender keeping. For all practical purposes we have 
but one telegraph company in the United States, and but one 
express company. If nothing is done to check the present 
tendencies, it will not be long until we have but one railroad 
company in the United States, and then it is by no means im¬ 
probable that three monster monopolies may, “ in order to 
form a more perfect union, insure domestic tranquility^'^ provide 
for their “common defense” and promote their “general wel¬ 
fare,” “ ordain and establish a constition,” which shall combine 
all three in one, and it will be owing to the mercy of Heaven 
or the vigilance of our people, if they do not so far extend 
their schemes as to ordain a constitution for the people of the 
United States. (Sensation.) 
This fearful consolidation tends to withdraw corporate 
action from public observation. Slaveholders could not plot in 
secret; but to execute their schemes they had to publish their 
platforms and “yo to the country ” for a trial. The people were 
thus informed of what was intended, and it was their own fault 
if they did not take care of themselves. But the railroads, 
express and telegraph business of the United States embracing 
untold millions of capital, reaching into every state, territory, 
county, town, village and farm of the country, may all be 
managed by a board of fifteen directors,, sitting with closed 
doors, by candle light, in Wall street. What they determine 
upon, they need not submit to public examination, nor to the 
contingency of a general election by the people; and thus a 
power more formidable than the powers of this gigantic national 
government, because more closely touching the rights and 
pockets of the people, will come to be exercised by a few men 
