Year: 1866

governments are instituted among
men, deriving their just powers
from the consent OF the governed"
is essential TO the preservation Of
our Republican institutions. Tho
Republicans at Chicago in 1860,
seized upon the above passage in
the Declaration Of Independence in
1776, and assumed it aS containing
an announcement, for theN6i st time,
of certain practical truths Of that
day, the equality of human rights
being the principal one Of them,
and intended to be the basis or fun
damental idea OF principle of the
new government they meant to
found, for the assertion and main
tcnancc of which the fathers of the
Revolution had expended their lives
and their fortunes IN the hazards of
war, and the declaration of this
principle was a justification Of their
cSnduct before the civilized world
in throwing off their allegiance to
the mother country and bringing on
q war of which the wiscst could not
foresee the termination or conse-
quences. 1t is admitted that this
great principle was not carried out
in the Revolution, nor adopted in
the Constitution Of 1889, because,
say the Republicans, it was choked
and smothered il the bud by the
slave interest; but during the whole
period of the Revolution there was
no disavowal of the sentiment con-
tained in the Declaration of Inde-
pendence.


Thus, by the testimony of these
latter day reformcrs, the first men
of the Revolution, I may say all
the great men of that day, with
Washington and the Adamses ut
their head, stand convicted of a de.
liberate fraud, a hypocritical false
hood in the declaration of the prin-
ciples which they announced as the
causes and justification of the quar-
rel Of the colonies with Great Brit
ain, appealing to the God of Battle
for the justice Of their cause, and
invoking his blessing upon it, for,
in fact, the equality Of human rights,
by the lar Of nature, was neither tho
cause, or the violation of it the JUS
tifcation of the quarrel with Great
Britain. But it may be, and pro-
badly it was the fact, thatthe Faith
ers of the Revolution gave no such
Interpretation to the sentiment, or
the doctrine of equal rights Of man
by the lar Of nature, that their ,riser
SUCCESSORS of this day have given
to it; not supposing that it ever
could become the dogma Of school
of politicians. Now, the truth is
that the idea Of the "egual rights of
man," the theory of the equality
Of human rights by the law Of hu-
man nature--more like the creation
of fancy, Or the dream of the sem
timentalist, than the axiom, or aph-
orism of philosopher, or practical
statesman-was announced by one
of the Kings of France, some two
or three centuries before Jefferson's
time.


have not the authority before
me, but the saying "that all men
were born equal" and have equal
claims, by the law Of nature, though
in the humblest condition of life,
upon the justice and sympathies Of
their fcllowmen, even, in the high
est rank of power and fortunc-is
found in an old ordinance If the
King, addressed to the Princes and
Lords paramount, whose rights Of
liberty in their serfs he had no right
to interfere with, or, if he had, was
powcrless to enforce, appealing 10
them for some amelioration of the
hard condition of the serfs on their
domain, announcing at the same
time that he had cmancipated all
that were on his own domain. 1t
is proper to say that the serfs of
France were white men, and that
the claims of the negro TO be con-
sidered equal in his rights to those
of the white race were not proba-
bly, in the royal mind, he not hav-
ing heard of the horrors of tho
middle ages or the seventies of ne
gro slavery in the West Indies,
there being no African slavery then
on the continent Of America.


The sentiment, therefore, could
not have been intended to embrace
the negro, and it is highly probable
that, if it had occupied place in
his thoughts, his unsophisticated
mind would have led him to tho
conclusion that the natural equality
of rights even of white men. in the
lowest condition of life, and their
claims TO the justice, protection and
sympathies of their fellow-man, in
the highest classes of society, or in
the higher stages of civilization
neither qualified them to become
legislators, rulers, or officers of gov
ernment of any grade. or to select
others as their delegates, without
other qualifications than those with
which nature had endowed them.