regardless of county lines, and those of the na tion irrespective of state lines.

One month before the final election, let there be held a primary election, with all the binding force and safeguards that the law can give. Let each voter express his or her choice for a candidate for office freely; and let there be as many candidates as the people desire to vote for. When these votes have been officially canvassed and reported, let all candidates be dropped except those having the highest number of votes aggregating a majority of the party voting for them. At the final election, each party will unite on one or more candidates who will be the choice of the majority of his party.

Where a number of officers of the same kind are to be elected, as supervisors, commissioners, and legislators, let the number of votes in the jurisdiction be divided by the number of officers to be elected, and the quotient be termed a quota. When a candidate receives a quota of votes, let him be declared elected. Then each party will concentrate its whole force on as many candidates as it can elect, for more than that would defeat its candidates. Thus each party would have a proportional representation.

With a government thus founded, constructed, and represented, the people of the United States

would be the most powerful, prosperous, and happy nation on the globe, requiring neither strife nor blood to attain such conditions.

One hundred years of experience, with the aid of history and the present condition of existing nations, ought to be a sufficient guide to that happy consummation.

Wisdom, justice, and humanity dictate it; advancing civilization requires it; and an enslaved, robbed, and impoverished people demand it. To break this thralldom and maintain popular freedom is the first and most important duty, and the highest privilege of this oppressed, impoverished, and enslaved people.

Let all who think, who love liberty, justice, and humanity, resolve to accomplish this great work; and the toiling millions, struggling in their poverty and now sinking into pauperism, with grateful voices will bless the workers; coming generations will sing their praises, and the glory of a moral heroism far surpassing any displayed on the field of battle will give worth and splendor to the names of those who did it.

CHAPTER III.

A BRIEF REVIEW OF THE STRUGGLE FOR
LIBERTY.

"The man that is not moved at what he reads,
That takes not fire at their heroic deeds,
Unworthy of the blessings of the brave,
Is base in kind, and born to be a slave."

THE love of liberty is inherent in every sentient being. The condition of liberty is essential in the accomplishment of life's purposes. In the wilds of the new continent, and yielding to the impulse of freedom, the colonists were not slow in developing its spirit and enjoying the sweets of unrestrained aetivity. But the tyranny that drove them from their native land followed them to their new homes, and with insatiable lust sought to replace its shackles upon them. For more than a hundred and fifty years this struggle went on. Inspired only by avarice and the love of dominion, Great Britain resorted to every means for her own aggrandizement at the expense of the colonists. And yet the colonists maintained a loyalty to the mother government with wonderful pertinacity. But the accumulation of wrongs proved too much for even such loyalty.

The colonies were made a source of immense revenue to the mother country, and the struggle to throw off British tyranny was as intense and determined as the spirit of the colonists had been patient and indulgent; and the long contest ended in the acknowledgment of the independence of the United States by Great Britain in 1783.

It was not until 1754 that any effort was made to confederate the colonies for mutual defense. In that year, the first movement for a confederation of interests in the colonies was made for defense against the threatened invasion of the French and in support of the home government. The next was in 1765, in which a Declaration of Rights was published, but nothing further was done. The first suggestion of an independent movement was made in 1774, and the first Continental Congress was held in Philadelphia in September of that year; and in October following a Declaration of Rights appeared, in which natural rights were considered to some extent, and representation in their colonial government demanded, and a protest against certain usurpations. The result was expressed in the following words:

"1. To enter into a non-importation, non-consumption, and non-exportation agreement or association.

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"2. To prepare an address to the people of

Great Britain, and a memorial to the inhabitants of British America.

"3. To prepare a loyal address to his Majesty, agreeable to resolutions already entered into."

But the stirring events that intervened between that act and July, 1776, prepared the people for that grandest of all Declarations. For sublimity and heroism it transcends anything ever accomplished by man; and for the interests involved in humanity no deeds of men approach it. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." The necessary condition of equality is justice, and justice among men precludes the necessity of charity, for those only require charity who suffer from injustice.

"That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." Bold and sacrilegious is the power that deprives them of these rights. Emanating from a DIVINE SOURCE, they are themselves divine, and their deprivation by force or fraud is a crime.

"That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men." This is the legitimate object of government.

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Deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed." All power derived from other sources is despotism. Consent implies volition, and a government sustained by such power must necessarily be free.