I might, perhaps, leave this proposition without one word of comment.
The equality of men will not be directly denied on this occasion; and
yet it is so often assailed of late, that I shall not seem to occupy
your time superfluously, I trust, while endeavoring to show what is
understood by this term, when used in laws, constitutions, or other
political instruments. Here I encounter a prevailing misapprehension.
Lord Brougham, in his recent work on Political Philosophy, announces,
with something of pungency, that "the notion of Equality, or anything
approaching to Equality, among the different members of any community,
is altogether wild and fantastic."[13] Mr. Calhoun, in the Senate
of the United States, assails both the principle and the form of
its statement. He does not hesitate to say that the claim in the
Declaration of Independence is "the most false and dangerous of
all political errors,"--that it "has done more to retard the cause
of liberty and civilization, and is doing more at present, than
all other causes combined,"--that "for a long time it lay dormant,
but in the process of time it began to germinate and produce its
poisonous fruits."[14] Had these two distinguished authorities chosen
to comprehend the extent and application of the term thus employed,
something, if not all, of their objection would have disappeared. That
we may better appreciate its meaning and limitation, I am induced to
exhibit the origin and growth of the sentiment, which, finally ripening
into a formula of civil and political right, was embodied in the
Constitution of Massachusetts.
[13] Part II. ch. 4, p. 23.
[14] Speech on the Oregon Bill, June 27, 1848: Works, Vol. IV.
pp. 507, 511, 512; Congressional Globe, 30th Cong. 1st Sess.,
Vol. XVIII. p. 876. These extravagances found an echo afterwards.
Mr. Pettit, a Senator of the United States from Indiana, after
quoting the words, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that
all men are created equal," proceeded to say: "I hold it to be a
self-evident lie. There is no such thing. Sir, tell me that the
imbecile, the deformed, the weak, the blurred intellect in man
is my equal, physically, mentally, or morally, and you tell me
a lie. Tell me, Sir, that the slave in the South, who is born
a slave, and with but little over one half the volume of brain
that attaches to the Northern European race, is his equal, and
you tell what is physically a falsehood. There is no truth in
it at all." (Speech in the Senate of the United States, February
20, 1854: Congressional Globe, 33d Cong. 1st Sess., Appendix,
Vol. XXIX. p. 214.) Mr. Choate, without descending into the same
particularity, seems to have reached the same conclusion, when, in
addressing political associates, he characterized the Declaration
of Independence as "that passionate and eloquent manifesto of
a revolutionary war," and then again spoke of its self-evident
truths as "the glittering and sounding generalities of natural
right." (Letter to the Maine Whig State Central Committee, August
9, 1856: Works, Vol. I. pp. 214, 215.) This great question was a
hinge in the famous debate between Mr. Douglas and Mr. Lincoln in
the contest for the senatorship of Illinois, when the former said,
in various forms of speech, that "the Declaration of Independence
only included the white people of the United States," and the
latter replied, that "the entire records of the world, from the
date of the Declaration of Independence up to within three years
ago, may be searched in vain for one single affirmation, from one
single man, that the negro was not included in the Declaration."
(Political Debates between Hon. Abraham Lincoln and Hon. Stephen A.
Douglas in the Campaign of 1858 in Illinois: see speech of Douglas
at Springfield, July 17, and of Lincoln at Galesburgh, October 7;
and _passim_.) Andrew Johnson, speaking in the Senate, showed the
side to which he belonged, when he said, after quoting the great
words of the Declaration: "Is there an intelligent man throughout
the whole country, is there a Senator, when he has stripped himself
of all party prejudice, who will come forward and say that he
believes that Mr. Jefferson, when he penned that paragraph of the
Declaration of Independence, intended it to embrace the African
population? Is there a gentleman in the Senate who believes any
such thing?... There is not a man of respectable intelligence who
will hazard his reputation upon such an assertion." (Congressional
Globe, 36th Cong. 1st Sess., December 12, 1859, p. 100.)
Equality as a sentiment was early cherished by generous souls. It
showed itself in dreams of ancient philosophy, and was declared by
Seneca, when, in a letter of consolation on death, he said, _Prima
enim pars Æquitatis est Æqualitas_: "The chief part of Equity is
Equality."[15] But not till the truths of the Christian Religion was
it enunciated with persuasive force. Here we learn that God is no
respecter of persons,--that he is the Father of all,--and that we are
all his children, and brethren to each other. When the Saviour gave us
the Lord's Prayer, he taught the sublime doctrine of Human Brotherhood,
enfolding the equality of men.
[15] Epist. XXX.
Slowly did this sentiment enter the State. The whole constitution
of government was inconsistent with it. An hereditary monarchy, an
order of nobility, and the complex ranks of superior and inferior,
established by the feudal system, all declare, not the equality, but
the inequality of men, and all conspire to perpetuate this inequality.
Every infant of royal blood, every noble, every vassal, is a present
example, that, whatever may be the injunctions of religion or the
sentiment of the heart, men under these institutions are not born equal.
The boldest political reformers of early times did not venture to
proclaim this truth, nor did they truly perceive it. Cromwell beheaded
his king, but secured the supreme power in hereditary succession to his
eldest son. It was left to his loftier contemporary, John Milton, in
poetic vision to be entranced
"With fair Equality, fraternal state."[16]
Sidney, who perished a martyr to the liberal cause, drew his
inspiration from classic, and not from Christian fountains. The
examples of Greece and Rome fed his soul. The English Revolution of
1688, partly by force and partly by the popular voice, changed the
succession to the crown, and, if we may credit loyal Englishmen,
secured the establishment of Freedom throughout the land. But the Bill
of Rights did not declare, nor did the genius of Somers or Maynard
conceive the political axiom, that all men are born equal. It may find
acceptance from Englishmen in our day, but it is disowned by English
institutions.
[16] Paradise Lost, Book XII. 26.
I would not forget the early testimony of the "judicious" Hooker, who
in his "Ecclesiastical Polity," that masterly work, dwells on the
equality of men by nature, or the subsequent testimony of Locke, in his
"Two Treatises of Government," who, quoting Hooker, asserts for himself
that "creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to
all the same advantages of nature and the use of the same faculties,
should also be _equal_ one amongst another, without subordination or
subjection."[17] Hooker and Locke saw the equality of men in a state of
Nature; but their utterances found more acceptance across the Channel
than in England.
It is to France that we must pass for the earliest development of
this idea, its amplest illustration, and its most complete, accurate,
and logical expression. In the middle of the last century appeared
the renowned _Encyclopédie_, edited by Diderot and D'Alembert. This
remarkable production, where science, religion, and government are
discussed with revolutionary freedom, contains an article on Equality,
first published in 1755. Here we find the boldest expression of this
sentiment down to that time. "Natural Equality," says this authority,
"is that which exists between all men by the constitution of their
nature only. This Equality is the principle and the foundation
of Liberty. Natural or moral equality is, then, founded upon the
constitution of human nature common to all men, who are born, grow,
subsist, and die in the same manner. Since human nature finds itself
the same in all men, it is clear, that, according to Nature's law, each
ought to esteem and treat the others as beings who are naturally equal
to himself,--that is to say, who are men as well as himself." It is
then remarked, that political and civil slavery is in violation of this
Equality; and yet the inequalities of nobility in the state are allowed
to pass without condemnation. Alluding to these, it is simply said that
"they who are elevated above others ought to treat their inferiors as
naturally their equals, shunning all outrage, exacting nothing beyond
what is their due, and exacting with humanity what is incontestably
their due."[18]
[17] Locke on Government, Book II. ch. 2, § 4. Hooker,
Ecclesiastical Polity, Book I.
[18] Encyclopédie, art. _Égalité Naturelle_, Tom. V. p. 415.
Considering the period at which this article was written, we are
astonished less by its vagueness and incompleteness than by its bravery
and generosity. The dissolute despotism of Louis the Fifteenth poisoned
France. The antechambers of the King were thronged by selfish nobles
and fawning courtiers. The councils of Government were controlled
by royal mistresses. The King, only a few years before, in defiance
of Equality,--but in entire harmony with the conduct of the School
Committee in Boston,--founded a military school _for nobles only_,
carrying into education the distinction of Caste. At such a period
the Encyclopedia did well in uttering important and effective truth.
The _sentiment_ of Equality was fully declared. Nor should we be
disappointed, that, at this early day, even the boldest philosophers
did not adequately perceive, or, if they perceived, did not dare to
utter, our axiom of liberty.
Thus it is with all moral and political ideas. First
appearing as a sentiment, they awake a noble impulse,
filling the soul with generous sympathy, and encouraging to congenial
effort. Slowly recognized, they finally pass into a formula, to be
acted upon, to be applied, to be defended in the concerns of life, as
principles.
Almost contemporaneously with this article in the Encyclopedia our
attention is arrested by a poor solitary, of humble extraction, born
at Geneva, in Switzerland, of irregular education and life, a wanderer
from his birthplace, enjoying a temporary home in France,--Jean Jacques
Rousseau. Of audacious genius, setting at nought received opinions,
he rushed into notoriety by an eccentric essay "On the Origin of the
Inequality among Men," where he sustained the irrational paradox,
that men are happier in a state of Nature than under the laws of
Civilization. At a later day appeared his famous work on "The Social
Contract." In both the sentiment of Equality is invoked against abuses
of society, and language is employed tending far beyond Equality in
Civil and Political Rights. The conspicuous position since awarded to
the speculations of Rousseau, and their influence in diffusing this
sentiment, would make this sketch imperfect without allusion to him;
but he taught men to feel rather than to know, and his words have more
of inspiration than of precision.
The French Revolution was at hand. That great outbreak for
enfranchisement was the expression of this sentiment. Here it received
distinct and authoritative enunciation. In the Constitutions of
Government successively adopted, amid the throes of bloody struggle,
the equality of men was constantly proclaimed. Kings, nobles, and all
distinctions of birth, passed away before this mighty and triumphant
truth.
These Constitutions show the grandeur of the principle, and how it
was explained and illustrated. The Constitution of 1791, in its first
article, declares that "Men are born and continue free and _equal in
their rights_." This great declaration was explained in the sixth
article: "The law is the expression of the general will.... It ought
to be the same for all, whether it protect or punish. All citizens,
being equal in its eyes, are equally admissible to all dignities,
places, and public employments, according to their capacity, and
without other distinction than their virtues and talents." At the close
of the Declaration of Rights there is this further explanation: "The
National Assembly, wishing to establish the French Constitution on
the principles which it has just acknowledged and declared, abolishes
irrevocably the institutions which bounded liberty and equality
of rights. There is no longer nobility, or peerage, or hereditary
distinctions, or distinction of orders, or feudal rule, or patrimonial
jurisdictions, or any titles, denominations, or prerogatives
thence derived, or any orders of chivalry, or any corporations or
decorations for which proofs of nobility were required, or which
supposed distinctions of birth, or any other superiority than that of
public functionaries in the exercise of their functions.... _There
is no longer, for any part of the nation, or for any individual, any
privilege or exception to the common right of all Frenchmen._"[19]
These diffuse articles all begin and end in the equality of men.
[19] Moniteur, 1791, No. 259.
In fitful mood, another Declaration of Rights was brought forward
by Condorcet. February 15, 1793. Here are fresh inculcations of
Equality. Article First places Equality among the natural, civil,
and political rights of man. Article Seventh declares: "Equality
consists in this, that each individual can enjoy the same rights."
Article Eighth: "_The law ought to be equal for all_, whether it
recompense or punish, whether it protect or repress." Article Ninth:
"All citizens are admissible to all public places, employments, and
functions. Free people know no other motives of preference in their
choice than talents and virtues." Article Twenty-third: "Instruction
is the need of all, and society owes it equally to all its members."
Article Thirty-second: "There is oppression, when a law violates the
natural, civil, and political rights which it ought to guaranty. There
is oppression, when the law is violated by the public functionaries
in its application to individual cases."[20] Here again is the same
constant testimony, reinforced by the accompanying report explaining
the Constitution, where it is said: "All hereditary political power is
at the same time an evident violation of natural equality and an absurd
institution, since it supposes the inheritance of qualities proper for
the discharge of a public function. Every exception to the common law
made in favor of an individual is a blow struck at the rights of all."
And in another part of the same report, "the sovereignty of the people,
_equality among men_, the unity of the Republic," are declared to have
been "the guiding principles always present in the formation of the
Constitution."[21]
[20] Moniteur, 1793, No. 49.
[21] Exposition des Principes et des Motifs du Plan de
Constitution: Condorcet, OEuvres, Tom. XII. pp. 336, 413.
Next came the Constitution of June, 1793, announcing, in its second
article, that the natural and imprescriptible rights of men are
"_Equality_, liberty, security, property." In the next article we
learn precisely what is meant by Equality, when it says, "All men are
equal by nature _and before the law_."[22] So just and captivating was
this definition, which we encounter here for the first time, that it
held its place through all the political vicissitudes of France, under
the Directory, the Consulate, the Empire, the Restoration, and the
Constitutional Government of Louis Philippe. It was a conquest which,
when achieved, was never abandoned. Every Charter and Constitution
certified to it. The Charter of Louis Philippe testifies as follows:
"Frenchmen are _equal before the law_, whatever may be their titles
and ranks."[23] Nor was its use confined to France. It passed into
other constitutions, and Napoleon, who so often trampled on the rights
of Equality, dictated to the Poles the declaration, that _all persons
are equal before the law_. Thus the phrase is not only French, but
Continental, although never English.
While recognizing this particular form of speech as more specific and
satisfactory than the statement that all men are born equal, it is
impossible not to be reminded that it finds a prototype in the ancient
Greek language, where, according to Herodotus, "the government of the
many has the most beautiful name of all, [Greek: isonomia], _isonomy_"
which may be defined _Equality before the Law_.[24] Thus, in an age
when _Equality before the Law_ was practically unknown, this remarkable
language, by its comprehensiveness and flexibility, supplied a single
word, not found in modern tongues, to express an idea practically
recognized only in modern times. Such a word in our own language, as
the substitute for Equality, might have superseded criticism to which
this declaration is exposed.
[22] Moniteur, 1793, No. 178.
[23] Annuaire Historique Universel pour 1830, Appendice, p. 48.
[24] Book III. § 80. The same idea prevailed with Demosthenes,
who, in his First Oration against Aristogiton, pictured the laws as
desiring "the just and the beautiful and the useful," which, when
found, is set forth in a general ordinance, "equal and alike to
all."--_Orat. I. contra Aristogit._, § 5.
* * * * *
EQUALITY UNDER CONSTITUTION OF MASSACHUSETTS AND DECLARATION OF
INDEPENDENCE.
The way is now prepared to consider the nature of Equality, as secured
by the Constitution of Massachusetts. The Declaration of Independence,
which followed the French Encyclopedia and the political writings of
Rousseau, announces among self-evident truths, "_that all men are
created equal_; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness." The Constitution of Massachusetts repeats the same truth
in a different form, saying, in its first article: "_All men are born
free and equal_, and have certain natural essential, and unalienable
rights, among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending
their lives and liberties." Another article explains what is meant
by Equality, saying: "No man, nor corporation or association of men,
have any other title to obtain advantages, or particular and exclusive
privileges, distinct from those of the community, than what arises from
the consideration of services rendered to the public; and this title
being in nature neither hereditary, nor transmissible to children, or
descendants, or relations by blood, the idea of a man being born a
magistrate, lawgiver, or judge is absurd and unnatural." This language,
in its natural signification, condemns every form of inequality in
civil and political institutions.
These declarations, though in point of time before the ampler
declarations of France, may be construed in the light of the latter.
Evidently, they seek to declare the same principle. They are
declarations of _Rights_; and the language employed, though general
in character, is obviously limited to those matters within the design
of a declaration of _Rights_. And permit me to say, it is a childish
sophism to adduce any physical or mental inequality in argument against
Equality of Rights.
Obviously, men are not born equal in physical strength or in mental
capacity, in beauty of form or health of body. Diversity or inequality
in these respects is the law of creation. From this difference springs
divine harmony. But this inequality is in no particular inconsistent
with complete civil and political equality.
The equality declared by our fathers in 1776, and made the fundamental
law of Massachusetts in 1780, was _Equality before the Law_. Its object
was to efface all political or civil distinctions, and to abolish all
institutions founded upon _birth_. "All men are _created_ equal," says
the Declaration of Independence. "All men are _born_ free and equal,"
says the Massachusetts Bill of Rights. These are not vain words. Within
the sphere of their influence, no person can be _created_, no person
can be _born_, with civil or political privileges not enjoyed equally
by all his fellow-citizens; nor can any institution be established,
recognizing distinction of birth. Here is the Great Charter of every
human being drawing vital breath upon this soil, whatever may be his
condition, and whoever may be his parents. He may be poor, weak,
humble, or black,--he may be of Caucasian, Jewish, Indian, or Ethiopian
race,--he may be of French, German, English, or Irish extraction;
but before the Constitution of Massachusetts all these distinctions
disappear. He is not poor, weak, humble, or black; nor is he Caucasian,
Jew, Indian, or Ethiopian; nor is he French, German, English, or Irish;
he is a MAN, the equal of all his fellow-men. He is one of the
children of the State, which, like an impartial parent, regards all
its offspring with an equal care. To some it may justly allot higher
duties, according to higher capacities; but it welcomes all to its
equal hospitable board. The State, imitating the divine justice, is no
respecter of persons.
Here nobility cannot exist, because it is a privilege from birth. But
the same anathema which smites and banishes nobility must also smite
and banish every form of discrimination founded on birth,--
"Quamvis ille niger, quamvis tu candidus esses."[25]
[25] Virgil, Eclog. II. 16.
* * * * *