The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-07-05
FRIDAY, JULY 5, 1857.
Our National Position and Prospects

is only as we drift away from great events that
thew begin to stand out before us in their true
magnitude, and we commence to see the rela-
tior thew bear to the welfare and progress of
the human race.
Our late great war is already commencing
TO occupy something of this historic perspec-
tive. Doubtless, we do not even yet realize
to its full extent the true position which it
held with reference either to the destinies of
orr own country or to the larger movements
of the human race. But we can begin to see
that IL was, so to speak, the decisive point ia
the progress of republican principles both in
our own country and throughout the world.
II was the elimination of the "irrepressble
conflict" between the eternally antagonistic
principles of human equality and inequality
or, in other words, between the forces of free
dom and slavery, which had been waged in
our own Government from its foundation down
to the hour of physical conflict, and whose
dying embers still cast ftful though fading
glare over our national politics.
When our fathers, ninety-one years ago
yesterday, in this city, proclaimed those i'm
mortal truths of the equality of all men, their
inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pur-
suit of happiness, and the consent of the
governed as the only true basis of rightful
human government, they started movement
which was destined to revolutionize the face
of society Throughout the world. The doctrine
of human equality, which is really the basis
of the entire declaration, is not only an afir-
nation of the human reason, as our fathers
maintained when they asserted it to be a
Selferident truth, but it is equally a tenet of
the Christian religion; so that in founding the
Government upon this principle, the heroes
and sages of the Revolution were but applying
the fundamental doctrines of Christianity to
the problem of civil rule. Now, the
war of the Rebellion was simply con-
test to determine whether this prin-
ciple, the only possible principle of
free government in our own country, or in
any other, should be given up as the basis of
American society. Philosophical minds upon
both sides oomprehended this instantly, and it
was the instructive appreciation of this fact by
the loyal masses that inspired them to such
noble displays of patriotism, and that impaired
to the struggle its moral grandeur and its
highest glory. Our opponents themselves CON
ceded that it was against this vital principle Of
free government that they had revolted. Mr..
Stephens, of Georgia, in his celebrated "corner-
stone" speech, avowed this fact with equal
bOldness and candor. "Those IDEAS" said
Mr.. Stephens, referring to the ideas in vogue
among the trainers of the Constitution, ''those
ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong.
They rested upon the assumption of the
equality of races. This was an error. 1t was
sandy foundation, and the idea of Govern
ment built upon it was wrong when the
storm came and the wind blew, it fell.
"Our new Government is founded upon ex-
actly the opposite ideas its foundations are
iaid-its cornerstone rests-upon the great
truth that the negro not equal to the white
man; that slavery, subordination to the supe-
rior race, is his natural and normal condition
This, our new Government, is the first in the
history of the world based upon this great
physical philosophical and moral truth
Mr. Stephens was right in his statement of the
fundamental difference between the Govern
ment established by the men who made the
Declaration of Independence, and that which
he and his fellow Rebels were endeavoring
to oerect upon its ruins, when once it should be
overthrown.
The despots of the Old World took the same
view OF the case In their opinion repub-
lican government was upon trial. It's crncial
hour had come. The contest was ALREADY vir-
tually decided against it, and the vulturas wo 70
gathering to pluck the bones Of the caroosg
It is safe to say that, throughout the worla
there was not a supporter of class privilaoos
and aristocratic or despotc power-not an
enemy of popular liberty, who did not give tn
the loyal cause in America the need of his
profoundest malediction.
The principles of 1776 triumphed. The
truths of the Declaration of Independence wer,
hallowed by the blood of an innumerable mul
titude who fell in their defense. The Govern
ment founded upon the idea of human equalit
proved to be founded on a rock and not upol
the sand, as its enemies had predicted. Tn
rains had descended and the floods had come
and the house had not fallen. But the struc
ture founded upon the great physical, philc
sophioal, and moral fasehood of the natura
and essential inequality of the members of tn
human family, had fallen, half-erected, int
complete and irremediable ruin. And with j
had gone the whole system of American aris
tocraoy. The revolution inaugurated TO over