LINCOLN RAISES A WARNING VOICE AGAINST THE CONCENTRATION OF GREAT WEALTH.
“Liberty cannot long endure,” said Webster, “when the tendency is to concentrate wealth in the hands of a few.”
President Lincoln, in a message to Congress, said of this danger: “Monarchy itself is sometimes hinted at as a possible refuge from the power of the people. In my present position I could scarcely be justified were I to omit raising a warning voice against approaching despotism. There is one point to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor in the structure of the government. Let them beware of surrendering a political power which they already have, and which if surrendered will surely be used to close the door of advancement against such as they, and to fix new disabilities and burdens upon them till all liberty shall be lost.”