Without entering into the legal aspects of the case, as to whether these claims be just or not; without assuming to know whether the nullification proposed by John C. Calhoun was legally sound; without discussing the question whether South Carolina and the other States of the South had a _right_ to secede and disintegrate the Union; assuming that they had the right, inherently, and to draw a parallel to the assumed Inherent Right of the rich of America under the laws and the Constitution as they now exist, their attention might be attracted profitably to the lesson that was taught the minority in the South when they assumed to exercise Inherent Rights contrary to the wishes of the majority. 2,800,000 bayonets, with the flag of the Union floating over them, was conclusive argument that the Inherent Rights claimed by the Southern States were actually Wrongs in a Republic. “Vox populi, vox Dei.” The voice of the people, the majority, is the voice of God in a Republic, from which there is _no appeal_. Seek it, as the South did in 1861, and the result will be the same. THE MAJORITY WILL RULE. Suppose that the Common People should demand a repeal of all the revenue laws, a repeal of all tariff duties and protection which did not result in direct benefit to them; suppose that they should insist that, except so far as protection benefited them (the “Common People”) by an increase of wages, which should be arrived at by a fair adjustment of the conflicting interests of capital and labor, adjusted by a board of arbitration selected by them, the Common People; suppose that the people should demand that these tremendous incomes enjoyed by the Vanderbilts, Astors, Goulds, Carnegies, Fricks, and others, should pay the pensions of the Federal soldiers who fought for the preservation of the Union; suppose the people should demand that the expenses of the Federal Government, instead of being levied upon _them_, should be levied upon the incomes of those who remained at home in safety during the four years of the Civil War; who, while far away from the field of battle, have speculated upon the necessities and needs of the nation, who have utilized that protection, born in a spirit of patriotic desire to furnish means for the support of the defenders of the Union, emanating from patriotic principles of the Abraham Lincoln Republican party; suppose that the people should demand that they--not out of the accumulated mass, but out of the interest upon the amount accumulated under existing laws--which said laws the people, through their representatives, shall deem wise to change--requiring that in the future these masters of immense wealth shall contribute a share to the defraying of the expenses of the Government commensurate with the advantages they have derived, from the load of debt, in the shape of pensions and otherwise, occasioned by the Civil War, wherein the Union was preserved.