FROM A SLAVE STATE TO A CORPORATE STATE – THE CIVIL WAR as CORPORATE REVOLUTION

from James B. Weaver, A Call To Action, 1892: 

"It seems strange that the legislators of the war [civil] and reconstruction periods failed to comprehend that those who drove hard bargains and exacted cruel concessions when the Republic was in peril, were as hostile to the spirit of liberty, though not so brave, as the armed Confederates. The motto of the Confederate leader was, "Give us our slaves and a dissevered Union or we will take them by force;" while that of the money shark was, "If you do not give us our price you can perish." The slaveholder lost his human chattels and the Confederacy perished. But the tyranny of capital was not broken by the war. On the contrary it was augmented beyond measure. Surrounded by the perils of battle, the statesman of the war period made concessions, which strengthened the tyranny of capital beyond the power of the imagination to conceive. In the days of reconstruction our leaders surrendered to it without a struggle. The battle for substantial and real emancipation has yet to be fought and it is but just ahead." pp. 19-20

"The slave holding aristocracy, restricted both as to locality and influence, was destroyed by the war only to be succeeded by an infinitely more dangerous and powerful aristocracy of wealth, which now pervades every State and aspires to universal dominion. Its first conquest was the subjugation of the do minant political party of the nation, while it required the other to keep the peace, under the threat that if it did not succumb it should never come into power.

"Next it secured control of State politics, and finally found expression in a vast net work of corporations which have seized upon almost every field of labor and every department of human effort. To prevent remedial legislation they have filled the Senate of the United States with men who represent the corporations and the various phases of organized greed." pp. 23-24

"The bench, both State and National, must be supplied from eminent members of the bar, and practically all the so-called distinguished members of the profession are in the service of the corporations....That these, and kindred influences, have thus been enabled for a score of years, to exercise almost unlimited control over the Legislative and Executive branches of the Government is too well established to be denied by the intelligent and candid man. That they have made serious inroads upon every branch of our Judiciary, and are now stealthily making still [83] further and greater efforts to obtain complete and, as far as this generation is concerned, permanent control o our Court of Last resort, is a truth well known to all whose eyes and ears are open to what is going on about them. Indeed, it is believed that they have already practically accomplished their purpose." P. 82

Read more of Weaver’s comments: 1892 Populist Presidential Candidate on Corporate Piracy WEAVER, James Baird, (1833 - 1912)

WEAVER, James Baird, a Representative from Iowa; born in Dayton, Ohio, June 12, 1833; moved with his parents to Michigan in 1835 and subsequently moved to Iowa and settled on a farm near Bloomfield; attended the common schools; studied law at Bloomfield 1853-1856; was graduated from the Cincinnati Law School in April 1856; was admitted to the bar in 1856 and commenced practice in Bloomfield; enlisted as a private in the Second Regiment, Iowa Volunteer Infantry, in April 1861; commissioned first lieutenant of Company G May 27, 1861; major July 25, 1862; colonel November 10, 1862; brevetted brigadier general of Volunteers March 13, 1864; mustered out May 27, 1864; elected district attorney for the second judicial district of Iowa in 1866 and served four years; appointed assessor of internal revenue for the first district of Iowa by President Johnson March 25, 1867, and served until May 20, 1873; elected as a Greenbacker to the Forty-sixth Congress (March 4, 1879-March 3, 1881); was not a candidate for renomination in 1880, but was nominated at Chicago in 1880 by the National Greenback Party as their candidate for President of the United States; unsuccessful candidate for election to the Forty-eighth Congress in 1882; elected to the Forty-ninth and Fiftieth Congresses (March 4, 1885-March 3, 1889); chairman, Committee on Expenditures in the Department of the Interior (Forty-ninth Congress), Committee on Patents (Fiftieth Congress); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1888 to the Fifty-first Congress; Populist candidate for President in 1892; mayor of Colfax, Iowa, 1901-1903; died in Des Moines, Iowa, February 6, 1912; interment in Woodland Cemetery.