EQUALITY.
As some persons have fancied that society could realize a state of absolute liberty, so some have fancied that a state of absolute equality could be attained. It is said in our Declaration of Independence, that “all mankind are created equal;” and this has often been taken as literally true.
But absolute equality is as impossible as absolute liberty. In the first place, mankind are not born equal in respect to civil condition. Some, as the serfs of Russia, are born slaves; in this country too, in some of the states, certain individuals are born to servitude, while others are born to enjoy freedom.
There are other grounds of inherent and necessary inequality. One person is born with a good constitution; another is sickly from the cradle. One person is endowed with a strong mind, another with a weak one. One person is gifted with beauty, another with deformity. One has natural grace, another awkwardness.
The surface of the earth, thrown into hills and valleys, with mountains whose tops mingle with the clouds, and ravines that never see the sunlight—meadows that bloom with flowers, and deserts that know no living thing—plains and sloping hills, covered with forests—and rocky regions where no tree can root itself—all this diversity of nature presents not more inequality than the conditions in which mankind are born. The whole system of nature and providence, shows it to be the design of the Creator and moral governor, that there shall be diversity in human society, as well as in nature.
Beside, even in those countries where there is the greatest freedom, and the nearest approach to equality in society, even there, mankind are neither born free nor equal, in the view of the law. If we take no account of slaves, still the children of white persons are not born free; they are under the control of their parents till they are twenty-one years old.
Females, who constitute a part of mankind, and whose natural rights are the same as those of men, are never placed on an equality with men before the law. They are never permitted, even in forming the constitution of a country, nor in enacting the laws, nor in choosing rulers, to use the right of voting. They are excluded from all share in the government, by the stronger sex, who proceed to make such laws as they please; and in all countries these laws exclude woman from political power.
It appears, therefore, that mankind are not born free and equal, in a literal sense. In what sense, then, can it be truly said that men are created equal? Only as meaning that all the members of society are born with a just claim to civil liberty—to that freedom which is compatible with the general good, and to an equality of rights. It means to say that those laws which make one man a lord and another a serf—which make one a citizen and debar another, in the same condition, from the right of voting—are violations of the principles of justice and the rights of man.
While, therefore, equality of condition is out of the question, one thing is plain,—that equal rights, equal laws, and an equal administration of these laws—so that the rich and the poor, the high and the lowly, the citizen and the officeholder, shall all stand on the same footing—are the ends and designs of a good government; and every person should so use his power as to establish such ends and designs. Equality does not mean that a woman shall be equal to a man, or a child the same as a man; but that all women, all children, all citizens, shall enjoy the same relative rights, privileges, and immunities.