Then, let us establish for the fancy of our sham aristocrats a picture for those who believe in the crime of “Caste” in our country, to dwell upon. The victors at Homestead and at Buffalo would do well, while imbibing the sweet draughts of victory, to consider the bitter cup of hemlock that the people can require them to partake of. Anything is possible in a Republic, by the votes of the majority. _All incomes less than five thousand dollars to be entirely exempt from taxation; from five to ten thousand, a tax of five per cent.; from ten to twenty thousand, ten per cent.; from twenty to fifty, twenty per cent.; from fifty to a hundred, forty per cent.; from a hundred to two hundred, fifty per cent.; from two hundred thousand to half a million, seventy-five per cent.; from half a million and onward, ninety per cent._ There is no pretence in this scale to be equitable or just. That could be arrived at by the statistician and the legislators. It is merely an example of what the people CAN AND MAY DO. The fund thus derived would more than defray all the expense of the Federal Government, pensions included, and increase the pensions besides. What is to prevent the enactment of such a law, if the majority should demand it? You may say, Gentlemen of the Privileged Classes, “It is contrary to the spirit of the Republic. It will amount to confiscation.” To men of the Carnegie, Frick, and Webb stamp the people might reply, “Was the hiring of armed bullies, outcasts, and residents of other States consistent with the spirit of the Republic? When you have formed those hirelings into a private army to do your bidding against the lives of your fellow citizens, is it not late in the day for you to call up ‘the Spirit of the Republic’? You have gloated in triumph over your victories and the wants of the people. You have seen us surrounded by starvation and destitution. You, professing Christianity, have made us objects of your contempt and insult. Our daughters have not been safe from the contaminating gaze of your weak, puerile progeny. You have adopted crests, castes, social distinctions, sham aristocracy. You have bowed the knee before the degenerate British peerage. You have taken the money earned by our labor to purchase alliances with the decayed aristocracy of Europe. Is it not _late_, good my would-be lords and barons, to call up the Spirit of 1776?” And, even should it come, like the spectres of the dream of Richard III., would it not make you quake and quiver, so contrary are your wishes to the spirit of the founders of the Union?