On other occasions it has been my duty to show how inconsistent is this pretension with our character as a Republic, and with the promises of our fathers,—all of which I consider it never out of order to say and to urge. But my present purpose is rather to show how inconsistent it is with that sublime truth, being part of God’s law for the government of the world, which teaches the Unity of the Human Family, and its final harmony on earth. In this law, which is both commandment and promise, I find duties and hopes,—perpetual duties never to be postponed, and perpetual hopes never to be abandoned, so long as Man is Man.
Believing in this law, and profoundly convinced that by the blessing of God it will all be fulfilled on earth, it is easy to see how unreasonable is a claim of power founded on any unchangeable physical incident derived from birth. Because man is black, because man is yellow, he is none the less Man; because man is white, he is none the more Man. By this great title he is universal heir to all that Man can claim. Because he is Man, and not on account of color, he enters into possession of the promised dominion over the animal kingdom,—“over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” But this equal copartnership without distinction of color symbolizes equal copartnership in all the Rights of Man.
As I enter upon this important theme, I confess an unwelcome impediment, partly from the prevailing prejudice of color, which has become with many what is sometimes called a second nature, and partly from the little faith among men in the future development of the race. The cry, “A white man’s government,” which is such an insult to human nature, has influence in the work of degradation. Accustomed to this effrontery, people do not see its ineffable absurdity, which is made conspicuous, if they simply consider the figure our fathers would have cut, had they declared the equal rights of white men, and not the equal rights of men. The great Declaration was axiomatic and self-evident because universal; confined to a class, it would have been neither. Hearkening to this disgusting cry, people close the soul to all the quickening voices, whether of prophet, poet, or philosopher, by which we are encouraged to persevere; nor do they heed the best lessons of science.
I begin by declaring an unalterable faith in the Future, which nothing can diminish or impair. Other things I may renounce, but this I cannot. Throughout a life of controversy and opposition, frequently in a small minority, sometimes almost alone, I have never for a moment doubted the final fulfilment of the great promises for Humanity without which this world would be a continuing chaos. To me it was clear from the beginning, even in the early darkness, and then in the bloody mists of war, that Slavery must yield to well-directed efforts against it; and now it is equally clear that every kindred pretension must yield likewise, until all are in the full fruition of those equal rights which are the crown of life on earth. Nor can this great triumph be restricted to our Republic. Wherever men are gathered into nations, wherever Civilization extends her beneficent sway, there will it be manifest. Against this lofty truth the assaults of the adversary are no better than the arrows of barbarians vainly shot at the sun. Still it moves, and it will move until all rejoice in its beams. The “all-hail Hereafter,” in which the poet pictures personal success, is a feeble expression for that transcendent Future where man shall be conqueror, not only over nations, but over himself, subduing pride of birth, prejudice of class, pretension of Caste.
The assurances of the Future are strengthened, when I look at Government and see how its character constantly improves as it comes within the sphere of knowledge. Men must know before they can act wisely; and this simple rule is applicable alike to individuals and communities. “Go, my son,” said the Swedish Chancellor, “and see with what little wisdom the world is governed.”[113] Down to his day government was little more than an expedient, a device, a trick, for the aggrandizement of a class, of a few, or, it may be, of one. Calling itself Commonwealth, it was so in name only. There were classes always, and egotism was the prevailing law. Macchiavelli, the much-quoted herald of modern politics, insisted that all governments, whether monarchical or republican, owed their origin or reformation to a single lawgiver, like Lycurgus or Solon.[114] If this was true in his day, it is not in ours. In the presence of an enlightened people, a single lawgiver, or an aristocracy of lawgivers, is impossible, while government becomes the rule of all for the good of all,—not the One Man Power, so constant in history,—not the Triumvirate, sometimes occurring,—not an Oligarchy, which is the rule of a few,—not an Aristocracy, which is the rule of a class,—not any combination, howsoever accepted, sanctioning exclusions,—but the whole body of the people, without exclusion of any kind, or, in the great words of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”[115]
Thus far government has been at best an Art, like alchemy or astrology, where ministers exercised a subtle power, or speculators tried imaginative experiments, seeking some philosopher’s-stone at the expense of the people. Though in many respects still an Art only, it is fast becoming a Science founded on principles and laws from which there can be no just departure. As a science, it is determined by knowledge, like any other science, aided by that universal handmaid, the philosophy of induction. From a succession of particulars the general rule is deduced; and this is as true of government as of chemistry or astronomy. Nor do I see reason to doubt, that, in the evolution of events, the time is at hand when government will be subordinated to unquestionable truth, making diversity of opinion as impossible in this lofty science as it is now impossible in other sciences already mastered by man. Science accomplishes part only of its beneficent work, when it brings physical nature within its domain. That other nature found in Man must be brought within the same domain. And is it true that man can look into the unfathomable Universe, there to measure suns and stars, that he can penetrate the uncounted ages of the earth’s existence, reading everywhere the inscriptions upon its rocks, but that he cannot look into himself, or penetrate his own nature, to measure human capacities and read the inscriptions upon the human soul? I do not believe it. What is already accomplished in such large measure for the world of matter will yet be accomplished for that other world of Humanity; and then it will appear, by a law as precise as any in chemistry or astronomy, that just government stands only on the consent of the governed, that all men must be equal before the law of man as they are equal before the law of God, and that any discrimination founded on the accident of birth is inconsistent with that true science of government which is simply the science of justice on earth.
One of our teachers, who has shed much light on the science of government,—I refer to Professor Lieber, of New York,—shows that the State is what he calls “a jural society,” precisely as the Church is a religious society, and an insurance company a financial society.[116] The term is felicitous as it is suggestive. Above the State rises the image of Justice, lofty, blindfold, with balance in hand. There it stands in colossal form with constant lesson of Equal Rights for All, while under its inspiration government proceeds according to laws which cannot be disobeyed with impunity, and Providence is behind to sustain the righteous hand. In proportion as men are wise, they recognize these laws and confess the exalted science.
“Know thyself” is the Heaven-descended injunction which ancient piety inscribed in letters of gold in the temple at Delphi.[117] The famous oracle is mute, but the divine injunction survives; nor is it alone. Saint Augustine impresses it in his own eloquent way, when he says, “Men go to admire the heights of mountains, and the great waves of the sea, and the widest flow of rivers, and the compass of the ocean, and the circuits of the stars, and leave themselves behind.”[118] Following the early mandate, thus seconded by the most persuasive of the Christian Fathers, man will consider his place in the universe and his relations to his brother man. Looking into his soul, he will there find the great irreversible Law of Right, universal for the nation as for himself, commanding to do unto others as we would have them do unto us; and under the safeguard of this universal law I now place the rights of all mankind. It is little that I can do; but, taking counsel of my desires, I am not without hope of contributing something to that just judgment which shall blast the effrontery of Caste as doubly offensive, not only to the idea of a Republic, but to Human Nature itself.