What we want to-day is what our fathers wrote. They did not attain to
their ideal; we approach it nearer, but have not yet reached it. We
want, not only the independence of a state, not only the independence of
a nation, but something far more glorious--the absolute independence of
the individual. That is what we want. I want it so that I, one of the
children of Nature, can stand on an equality with the rest; that I can
say this is my air, my sunshine, my earth, and I have a right to live,
and hope, and aspire, and labor, and enjoy the fruit of that labor, as
much as any individual, or any nation on the face of the globe.