Baltimore daily commercial. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1865-1867, 1865-11-09
WHAT DID JEFFERSON MEAN:

IN speech two weeks since at Syracuse,
New York, Mr. Montgomery Blair gave his
Interpretation of the famous passage from the
Declaration of independence, assuming that
..u men arc born free and equal. To this
celebrated thesis in respect to the meaning OF
which the context leaves us in no doubt. Mr.,
Blair ventures to give somewhat novel ex-
PLANTATION. Consider" he says, what Is
meant by that. Why, it means that VIC are all
born free and equal among ourselves. Hd
Thomas jefferson say that Cinnamon and Al
ricans could be brought over here and become
equals of the white man p
What Jefferson meant was that all men are
born equal before the law of abstract justice
and right; for he Immediately proceed" to de-
line his meaning by the addition, ''that they
are endowed by their Creator with certain IN
alicnablc rights that among these are llte,
liberty. and the pursuit Of happiness 1t
is Il purely gratnitous assumption to say that
he simply meant that We are all born free
alpoaq ourselves. He had 10 such Chinese
notion, as such a limitation would have i'm
piled. as to the rights of outside barbarians.
He did not conceive that the Creator bestowed
certain inalienable rights with the reservation
that they should be enjoyed solely 'among
ourselves" that life, liberty, and the pur-
suit of happiness" are not the legitimate pos
sessions and rights Of all Gods human
children.
This notion of the equality of all men, in
respect to life, liberty and the pursuit Of hap
piness, did not originate with Jefferson, nor
with Rousseau. nor with Algernon Sidney, nor
with Plato. 1t may be traced back to the
utterances of the earliest philosophers, pro
phcts and poets of antiquity. On the appear
ance of the Declaration of independence. old
Sam johnson undertook TO ridicule it much
in the way that the ntidel undertook to prove
atheism from the Bible; who. leaving out the
words 1.-The fool has said in his heart,
left standing only the concluding clause of
the sentence, there is no God" johnson
said: 80 far is it from being true that men
are naturally equal, that no two people can be
half an hour together but one shall acquire an
evident superiority over the other John
son having given this cue to misrepresenta-
=
niSh fund Of anti-Dcmocratic ridicule to
English Quarterly Reviewers. until Rufus
Choatc, of our own country, who ought to
have known better, took up the hostile strain
and pronounced Jefferson celebrated utter
ance "a ghttering generality"
But what candid critic can examine the
context, and suppose for a moment that ,Ief-
ierson was guilty Of the stupidity of claiming
for all men equality in respect to inherent abil-
ties, powers and opportunities? All that he
claimed was, that the rich and the poor. the
educated and the ignorant the high and the
lowly were all equally to be protected in the
enjoyment Of certain iualienabIc rights.
Mr.. Blair, though he does not join with the
detraction of jefferson by stigmatizing his
sentiments as a lallacy or ''glitering gene
rality," ventures 10 take all the pith out of it
jya misinterprctaton of its obvious meaning.
According to Mr.. Blair. men are free and
equal only ''among oUrsclvcs!" Not 10
the Gcntilcs but only TO our snug little
family, are certain inalenabe rights vouch-
saied by the Almighty! We must keep up a
sort of Brahmin cxclusvcncss, and regard rs
Parahs all men who cannot be classed as
8 among ourselves" TO suppose that Joflcr-
son, with his worldwide sympathics, his lib
cral views in regard to the admission of for
egncrs to citizenship, and his distinct testi-
mony as to the unrighteousness of slavery, in
regard to which he declared that be trembcd
when he rccollected that God is Just, =
meant the narrow, unchristian interpretation
which Mr.. Blair would give to his words, is to
suppose that he was a hypocrite in his pro
acts. Such was not democracy according to
Jefierson's theory Of human rights.