346 WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY . 
state absolutely prohibiting the voting of any tax, for any purpose, 
which should lay a burden on landed properties. 
5th. Exemption of 40 acres, as a homestead, from sale for 
debts, and its equivalent to those owning less than 40 acres. 
It is a safe principle to follow in all taxation, scrupulously to 
avoid laying the burden both in place and quantity where it will 
impair or diminish the ability to bear it, or, in other words, 
“never kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.” There is a sug¬ 
gestion of some vicious principle at work in the body politic, 
when congress votes tens of millions for the maintainance of a 
standing army, and only thousands for the Agricultural Depart¬ 
ment; when railroad presidents and directors own whole legisla¬ 
tures, and carry senators and representatives in their breeches 
pockets; when the consumer pays so much and the producer gets 
so little ; when legislators and agents ride on free passes and the 
farmer pays double rates for himself and treble for his freight; 
when the dogs run tax free, and the sheep must be kept shut up, 
or be killed by the 100,000 a year 1 
But with this mass of bribery, extortion and corrupt legisla¬ 
tion, has arisen a nemesis clothed in the garb of a farmer, whose 
tread is heard from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the lakes 
to the gulf. As the insane madness of the slave power precipi¬ 
tated a war which resulted in its entire and final destruction, so 
the arrogance and lofty mendaciousness of bribery, monopoly and 
extortion have dug their own graves, over which no tear will ever 
be shed, unless it be of joy for the burial; and the earnest prayer 
of millions is, that no Gabriel’s trump may ever sound their res¬ 
urrection, unless it be to a second death in the lake that burnetii 
with fire and brimstone. 
There is a light ahead—to-day there is the din and smoke of 
deadly combat, and though it may seem inopportune to shout 
victory, yet we feel it in our bones, we breathe it in the very air, 
and to the sons and daughters of toil we augur at no distant day 
a dominant voice in the legislative hall, and a controlling hand to 
guide the ship of state into a peaceful harbor. 
The paper was highly commended. The author believed in 
