and laboring many who live at home, and upon home products, go entirely free.
By the direct tax system, none can escape. However strictly the citizen may exclude from his premises, all foreign luxuries---fine cloths, fine silks, rich wines, golden chains, and diamond rings; still, for the possession of his house, his barn, and his homespun, he is to be perpetually haunted and harassed by the tax-gatherer. With these views we leave it to be determined, whether we or our opponents are the more truly democratic on this subject.
The third resolution declares the necessity and propriety of a National Bank. During the last fifty years so much has been said and written both as to the constitutionality and expediency of such an institution, that we could not hope to improve in the least on former discussions of the subject, were we to undertake it. We, therefore, upon the [question of?] constitutionality, content ourselves with remarking the facts, that the first National Bank was established chiefly by the same men who formed the constitution, at a time when that instrument was but two years old, receiving the sanction, as President, of the immortal Washington; that the second received the sanction, as President, of Mr. Madison, to whom common consent has awarded the proud title of ``Father of the Constitution''; and subsequently the sanction of the Supreme Court, the most enlightened judicial tribunal in the world.
Upon the question of the expediency, we only ask you to examine the history of the times, during the existence of the two Banks, and compare those times with the miserable present.
The fourth resolution declares the expediency of Mr. Clay's Land Bill. Much incomprehensible jargon is often urged against the constitutionality of this measure. We forbear, in this place, attempting to answer to it, simply because, in our opinion, those who urge it, are, through party zeal, resolved not to see or acknowledge the truth.
The question of expediency, at least so far as Illinois is concerned, seems to us the clearest imaginable. By the bill, we are to receive annually a large sum of money, no part of which we otherwise receive. The precise annual sum cannot be known in advance; it doubtless will vary in different years; still it is something to know, that in last year,---a year of almost unparalleled pecuniary pressure---it amounted to more than forty thousand dollars.
This annual income, in the midst of our almost insupportable difficulties, in the days of our severest necessity, our political opponents are furiously resolving to take and keep from us. And for