p238  Chapter XXVI

"In concluding this communication to the General Assembly of Iowa, I may be permitted to refer to the policy of government, under which we have increased in population and wealth, unsurpassed in the history and settlement of Western States; and, it must be conceded, that for the high position which we now occupy, as a sovereign State of the American Republic, we are principally indebted to the Constitution and laws for that prosperity.

"Of the Constitution of this State, it may with justice be said that it is republican in its character, and designed to protect the people against abuses and evils which have crept into the government of other and elder States. It prohibits any association or corporation from exercising the privilege of creating paper to circulate as money. It declares that corporations shall not be established by special laws, except for political or municipal purposes; and for all others, that general laws shall be passed for their organization, reserving to every one the privilege of forming companies for the transaction of all lawful business, and limiting State indebtedness in such a manner as to prevent great  p239 loss or repudiation. These restrictions, it is believed, have done much to build up this State, and to assure citizens that they are not to be oppressed by monopolies, bankruptcy, or extraordinary taxation."

"The removal of that great landmark of freedom, the Missouri Compromise line, when it had been sacredly observed until slavery had acquired every inch of soil south of it, has presented the aggressive character of that system broadly before the country. It has shown that all compromises with slavery, that were designed to favor freedom, are mere ropes of sand, to be broken by the first wave of passion or interest that may roll from South.

"It has forced upon the country an issue between free labor, political equality, and manhood on the one hand; and, on the other, slave labor, political degradation, and wrong. It becomes the people of the free States to meet that issue resolutely, calmly, and with a sense of the momentous consequences that will flow from its decision. To every elector, in view of that issue, might appropriately be applied the injunction anciently addressed to the Jewish King: 'Be strong, and show thyself a man.'

"It becomes the State of Iowa, — the only free child of the Missouri Compromise — to let the world know that she values the blessings that compromise has secured to her and that she will never consent to become a party to the nationalization of slavery."