The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1858-07-22


that God poured that wonderful illumi-
nation over the mind of Jefferson, and
inspired the utterance of those everlast-
ing truths. How grandly majestic they
come rolling down from the past, bap-
tized In the blood that flowed from pa
triotic hearts "We hold these truths
to be self-evident-that all men are Gre
ated equal; that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain inalienable
rights ; that among these are life, liber-
ty, and the pursuit of happiness" This
principle laid the axe at the root of the
old and long dominant dogma, that one
man, or race of men, was created to be
kings or mobiles, and another to be per-
petual peasantsand serfs. Itplaced them
upon the broad level of absolute equal
ity, so far as natural rights were con-
cerned. 1t does not say all British sub
jects born on this side of the ocean are
equal to those born on the other side of
it; it does not say that all English men
are born equal, or all French men, or
all Scotch men, 'or all Dutch men, or all
achite men, or all taUny men, or all black
men, but ALL MEN. That every human
being endowed with rational exist
ence, created in the image of his God,
was equally entitled to life and liberty.
1t is on this principle that criminal
jurisprudence rests. The law in its-li-
vine impartiality exacts the life of the
murderer, whatever his position, for that
of his victim. Whatever may have been
the intellectual endOwments of the hon.
icide, however exalted his social posi-
ton, he must pay the forfeit of his life
for staying the most abject and idiOtic
of his species. And why? Because the
life of the poor and debased victim was
as sacred and inviolable as that of his
gifted and exalted slayer. The one
was equally entitled to his life as the
other. So precisely with regard to Lib
erty: to that, every human being is
equally entitled.
To protect these rights, Governments
are instituted among men. Not to be-
stow rights are Governments instituted
among men, but to protect those which
God has already given, antecedent to all
organic forms of government. do not
depend upon Parliaments, or Kings, or
Congresses, or majorities, for my rights.
| hold them direct from the Creator
who formed me. So does every human
being. The man, or body of men, who
take away these rights, without the forms
of law, or with the forms of law, unless
forfeited by crime, are despots, tyrants,
and usurpers, and by the very act forfeit
their own.
If a man is robbed of these rights, it
makes no difference whether it is done
by one man called king, or by many
men called majority. l do not sub
scribe to that translucent phantom of
popular sovereignty, when it claims the
right to enslave men. In company of
a hundred men, have ninety mine the
right to rob the hundredth, provided
even it is submitted to them, and they
have fair election? A majority of a
hundred men, of which | am one, may
have the right to make the rules which
shall operate alike upon us all. But
when they come to commend an embit-
tered chalice to my lip, of which they
will not themselves partake, then | say
they have no right to do tit is
wrong.
If the people of Territory or of q
State will vote that they themselves and
their children shall alike be slaves, am
content. But that majority have the
rightful power to take away the natural
rights of any one single human being,
l deny. Those rights, | repeat, are given
and guarded by the common Father of
us all. And as the parental instincts
60 forth, with peculiar energy and jeal-
ousy, towards the unfortunate and less
favored member of the family circle,
protecting his interests and avenging his
wrongs, so the Divine Parent watches
with peculiar vigilance over the rights
of the weak and hapless ones of earth,
and avenges their injuries with terri
BILE and unusual retribution. Did it
never occur to you, gentlemen, that as
with the individual, so with the nation I?
Power, elevation, rare endowment, in
stead of comforting privilege and pre-
rogative, impose obligation. The All
Wise and All-Powerful is the All Good
as well 4; and it is His goodness that
claims our alteration. And that one ex-
preston which we have been taught to
lisp in childhood, and to utter in the
strength of years." Our Father "--is
the Magma Charta of human brother
hood and of human equality before God
and before the law.
What now is our country's duty,
destiny, and true glory? To 60 maraud-
ing over the territories of weaker ma
tions, like buccaneers and poltroons, to
extend the area Of Slavery; to hunt
down fugitive slaves, and take them back,
manacled, to bondage; to break down
the dykes of Freedom, and let the dark
and ensanguined waters of Slavery rush
in destructive flood aver the land
No. In the name of the fathers, in the
name of the Constitution, in the name
of the Declaration, in the name of our
dignity and position, and in the name
of God-no! The true mission of this
nation, the work assigned, the trust com
mitted, is to reduce to organic form as
we have already done, and now to illus
trate before the world, the great and
ever enduring truths that have recited,
and thus to exemplify before the nations
of the earth the principles of civil and
religious Freedom and Equality, and so
teach them that their monarchies and
despotisms are usurpations. | never