I know that sincere philanthropy is earnest for the immediate realization of its remotest aims; but time is always an element in reform.  It is one of the greatest acts on record to have brought 4,000,000 people into freedom.  The career of free industry must be fairly opened to them, and then their future prosperity and condition must, after all, rest mainly on themselves.  If they fail, and so perish away, let us be careful that the failure shall not be attributable to any denial of justice.  In all that relates to the destiny of the freedmen we need not be too anxious to read the future; many incidents which, from a speculative point of view, might raise alarm will quietly settle themselves.  Now that slavery is at an end, or near its end, the greatness of its evil in the point of view of public economy becomes more and more apparent.  Slavery was essentially a monopoly of labor, and as such locked the States where it prevailed against the incoming of free industry.  Where labor was the property of the capitalist, the white man was excluded from employment, or had but the second best chance of finding it; and the foreign emigrant turned away from the region where his condition would be so precarious.  With the destruction of the monopoly free labor will hasten from all parts of the civilized world to assist in developing various and immeasurable resources which have hitherto lain dormant.  The eight or nine States nearest the Gulf of Mexico have a soil of exuberant fertility, a climate friendly to long life, and can sustain a denser population than is found as yet in any part of our country.  And the future influx of population to them will be mainly from the North or from the most cultivated nations in Europe.  From the sufferings that have attended them during our late struggle let us look away to the future, which is sure to be laden for them with greater prosperity than has ever before been known.  The removal of the monopoly of slave labor is a pledge that those regions will be peopled by a numerous and enterprising population, which will vie with any in the Union in compactness, inventive genius, wealth, and industry.

Our Government springs from and was made for the people—­not the people for the Government.  To them it owes allegiance; from them it must derive its courage, strength, and wisdom.  But while the Government is thus bound to defer to the people, from whom it derives its existence, it should, from the very consideration of its origin, be strong in its power of resistance to the establishment of inequalities.  Monopolies, perpetuities, and class legislation are contrary to the genius of free government, and ought not to be allowed.  Here there is no room for favored classes or monopolies; the principle of our Government is that of equal laws and freedom of industry.  Wherever monopoly attains a foothold, it is sure to be a source of danger, discord, and trouble.  We shall but fulfill our duties as legislators by according “equal and exact justice to all men,” special privileges to none.  The Government is subordinate to the people; but, as the agent and representative of the people, it must be held superior to monopolies, which in themselves ought never to be granted, and which, where they exist, must be subordinate and yield to the Government.