Now will come the crucial test of the honesty and fidelity reposed, by the people, in the administration and legislative bodies elected by them. Should they prove recreant and traitors to the trust reposed in them, it would be the first time in the history of the nation (with possibly the single exception of John Tyler, who became President by the death of William Henry Harrison). Then, should the will of the people become manifest through the agency of their representatives, in Congress assembled, whereby the present laws be repealed; if it become evident that it was the will of the people that the Constitution of the United States should be amended, so as to be in accordance with the laws the enactment of which the people demanded, the legislators would be obliged to so amend and change the Constitution of the United States to make it consistent with the will of the people. Rock and foundation of the edifice of the Federal Government, the Constitution as it is, that which is more powerful than even the Constitution is the will of the people, the majority of the citizens of the Union, irrespective of wealth or assumed social position. It has been demonstrated that by some peculiar kind of method the wealth of the nation is becoming centralized in the hands of a few families and persons who render possible the construction of an oligarchy similar to that existing in the Republic of Venice. Suppose that the people should demand and insist upon the passage of an income tax for the support of the Federal Government, which would relieve them, the “Common People,” from paying for the privileges enjoyed by the rich, of living in a Republic and the security which their property there enjoys. And, suppose that the sham aristocracy should cry, “Inherent Rights,” as they would; the people might respond that it is not a question as to the Inherent Right of Mr. Astor, Mr. Vanderbilt, Mr. Rockefeller, _et al._, to possess, under the present system of laws, any amount of property. It is a mere question of the Will of the People. Many good, learned, and great Constitutional lawyers have argued, and with much apparent truth, that the federation of States prior to 1865 was but a mutual copartnership entered into by the sovereign States, springing from the original thirteen colonies, constituting but a copartnership, surrendering no right to the firm or copartnership except such rights as had been specifically named in the Federal Constitution.