"The day is past forever when religion could have feared the consequences of freedom. In what other land do so many heaven-pointing spires attest the devotional habits of the people? In what other land is the altar more faithfully served, or its fires kept burning with a steadier lustre? Yet the temples in which we worship are not founded on the violated rights of conscience, but erected by willing hands; the creed we profess is not dictated by arbitrary power, but is the spontaneous homage of our hearts; and religion, viewing the prodigious concourse of her voluntary followers, has reason to bless the auspicious influence of democratic liberty and universal toleration. She has reason to exclaim, in the divine language of Milton, 'though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and falsehood grapple! for who ever knew truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter? Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing.' The soundness of this glorious text of religious liberty has now been approved to the world by the incontestable evidence of our national experience, since it is one of those 'columns of true majesty' on which our political fabric stands. Let bigotry and intolerance turn their lowering eyes to our bright example, and learn the happy, thrice happy consequences, both to politics and religion, from placing an insuperable bar to that incestuous union, from which, in other lands, such a direful brood of error's monstrous shapes have sprung.
"It is one of the admirable incidents of democracy, that it tends, with a constant influence, to equalize the external condition of man. Perfect equality, indeed, is not within the reach of human effort.
'Order is heaven's first law, and, this confest,
Some are and must be greater than the rest,—
More rich, more wise.'
"Strength must ever have an advantage over weakness; sagacity over simplicity; wisdom over ignorance. This is according to the ordination of nature, and no institutions of man can repeal the decree. But the inequality of society is greater than the inequality of nature; because it has violated the first principle of justice, which nature herself has inscribed on the heart,—the equality, not of physical or intellectual condition, but of moral rights. Let us then hasten to retrace our steps wherein we have strayed from this golden rule of democratic government. This only is wanting to complete the measure of our national felicity.
"There is no room to fear that persuasion to this effect, though urged with all the power of logic and all the captivating arts of rhetoric, by lips more eloquent than those which address you now, will lead too suddenly to change. Great changes in social institutions, even of acknowledged errors, cannot be instantly accomplished without endangering those boundaries of private right which ought to be held inviolate and sacred. Hence it happily arises that the human mind entertains a strong reluctance to violent transitions, not only where the end is doubtful, but where it is clear as the light of day and beautiful as the face of truth; and it is only when the ills of society amount to tyrannous impositions that this aversion yields to a more powerful incentive of conduct. Then leaps the sword of revolution from its scabbard, and a passage to reformation is hewn out through blood. But how blest is our condition, that such a resort can never be needed! 'Peace on earth, and good will among men,' are the natural fruits of our political system. The gentle weapon of suffrage is adequate for all the purposes of freemen. From the armory of opinion we issue forth in coat of mail more impenetrable than ever cased the limbs of warrior on the field of sanguinary strife. Our panoply is of surest proof, for it is supplied by reason. Armed with the ballot, a better implement of warfare than sword of the 'icebrook's temper,' we fight the sure fight, relying with steadfast faith on the intelligence and virtue of the majority to decide the victory on the side of truth. And should error for awhile carry the field by his stratagems, his opponents, though defeated, are not destroyed: they rally again to the conflict, animated with the strong assurance of the ultimate prevalence of right.
'Truth crushed to earth shall rise again;
The eternal years of God are hers;
But error wounded writhes in pain,