Chapter II · (continued 2)

It were much nearer the truth to say that all men have an equal right, not to act as "one wills," but to have their wills restrained by law. No greater want is known to man, indeed, than the restraints of law and government. Hence, all men have an equal right to these, but not to the same restraints, to the same laws and governments. All have an equal right to that government which is the best for them. But the same government is not the best for all. A despotism is best for some; a limited monarchy is best for others; while, for a third people, a representative republic is the best form of government.

This proposition is too plain for controversy. It has received the sanction of all the great teachers of political wisdom, from an Aristotle down to a Montesquieu, and from a Montesquieu down to a Burke. It has become, indeed, one of the commonplaces of political ethics; and, however strange the conjunction, it is often found in the very works which are loudest in proclaiming the universal equality of human rights. Thus, for example, says Dr. Wayland: "The best form of government for any people is the best that its present moral condition renders practicable. A people may be so entirely surrendered to the influence of passion, and so feebly influenced by moral restraints, that a government which relied upon moral restraint could not exist for a day. In this case, a subordinate and inferior principle remains—the principle of fear, and the only resort is to a government of force or a military despotism. And such do we see to be the fact." What, then, becomes of the equal and inalienable right of all men to freedom? Has it vanished with the occasion which gave it birth?

But this is not all. "Anarchy," continues Wayland, "always ends in this form of government. [A military despotism.] After this has been established, and habits of subordination have been formed, while the moral restraints are too feeble for self-government, an hereditary government, which addresses itself to the imagination, and strengthens itself by the influence of domestic connections, may be as good a form as a people can sustain. As they advance in intellectual and moral cultivation, it may advantageously become more and more elective, and, in a suitable moral condition, it may be wholly so. For beings who are willing to govern themselves by moral principles, there can be no doubt that a government relying upon moral principle is the true form of government. There is no reason why a man should be oppressed by taxation and subjected to fear who is willing to govern himself by the law of reciprocity. It is surely better for an intelligent and moral being to do right from his own will, than to pay another to force him to do right. And yet, as it is better that he should do right than wrong, even though he be forced to do it, it is well that he should pay others to force him, if there be no other way of insuring his good conduct. God has rendered the blessing of freedom inseparable from moral restraint to the individual; and hence it is vain for a people to expect to be free unless they are first willing to be virtuous." Again, "There is no self-sustaining power in any form of social organization. The only self-sustaining power is in individual virtue.

"And the form of a government will always adjust itself to the moral condition of a people. A virtuous people will, by their own moral power, frown away oppression, and, under any form of constitution, become essentially free. A people surrendered up to their own licentious passions must be held in subjection by force; for every one will find that force alone can protect him from his neighbors; and he will submit to be oppressed, if he can only be protected. Thus, in the feudal ages, the small independent landholders frequently made themselves slaves of one powerful chief to shield themselves from the incessant oppression of twenty."

Now all this is excellent sense. One might almost imagine that the author had been reading Aristotle, or Montesquieu, or Burke. It is certain he was not thinking of equal rights. It is equally certain that his eyes were turned away from the South; for he could see how even "independent landholders" might rightfully make slaves of themselves. After such concessions, one would think that all this clamor about inherent and inalienable rights ought to cease.

In a certain sense, or to a certain extent, all men have equal rights. All men have an equal right to the air and light of heaven; to the same air and the same light. In like manner, all men have an equal right to food and raiment, though not to the same food and raiment. That is, all men have an equal right to food and raiment, provided they will earn them. And if they will not earn them, choosing to remain idle, improvident, or nuisances to society, then they should be placed under a government of force, and compelled to earn them.

Again, all men have an equal right to serve God according to the dictates of their own consciences. The poorest slave on earth possesses this right—this inherent and inalienable right; and he possesses it as completely as the proudest monarch on his throne. He may choose his own religion, and worship his own God according to his own conscience, provided always he seek not in such service to interfere with the rights of others. But neither the slave nor the freeman has any right to murder, or instigate others to murder, the master, even though he should be ever so firmly persuaded that such is a part of his religious duty. He has, however, the most absolute and perfect right to worship the Creator of all men in all ways not inconsistent with the moral law. And wo be to the man by whom such right is denied or set at naught! Such a one we have never known; but whosoever he may be, or wheresoever he may be found, let all the abolitionists, we say, hunt him down. He is not fit to be a man, much less a Christian master.

But, it will be said, the slave has also a right to religious instruction, as well as to food and raiment. So plain a proposition no one doubts. But is this right regarded at the South? No more, we fear, than in many other portions of the so-called Christian world. Our children, too, and our poor, destitute neighbors, often suffer, we fear, the same wrong at our remiss hands and from our cold hearts. Though we have done much and would fain do more, yet, the truth must be confessed, this sacred and imperious claim has not been fully met by us.

It may be otherwise at the North. There, children and poor neighbors, too, may all be trained and taught to the full extent of the moral law. This godlike work may be fully done by our Christian brethren of the North. They certainly have a large surplus of benevolence to bestow on us. But if this glorious work has not been fully done by them, then let him who is without sin cast the first stone. This simple thought, perhaps, might call in doubt their right to rail at us, at least with such malignant bitterness and gall. This simple thought, perhaps, might save us many a pitiless pelting of philanthropy.

But here lies the difference—here lies our peculiar sin and shame. This great, primordial right is, with us, denied by law. The slave shall not be taught to read. Oh! that he might be taught! What floods of sympathy, what thunderings and lightnings of philanthropy, would then be spared the world! But why, we ask, should the slave be taught to read? That he might read the Bible, and feed on the food of eternal life, is the reply; and the reply is good.

Ah! if the slave would only read his Bible, and drink its very spirit in, we should rejoice at the change; for he would then be a better and a happier man. He would then know his duty, and the high ground on which his duty rests. He would then see, in the words of Dr. Wayland, "That the duty of slaves is explicitly made known in the Bible. They are bound to obedience, fidelity, submission, and respect to their masters—not only to the good and kind, but also to the unkind and froward; not, however, on the ground of duty to man, but on the ground of duty to God." But, with all, we have some little glimpse of our dangers, as well as some little sense of our duties.

The tempter is not asleep. His eye is still, as ever of old, fixed on the forbidden tree; and thither he will point his hapless victims. Like certain senators, and demagogues, and doctors of divinity, he will preach from the Declaration of Independence rather than from the Bible. He will teach, not that submission, but that resistance, is a duty. To every evil passion his inflammatory and murder-instigating appeals will be made. Stung by these appeals and maddened, the poor African, it is to be feared, would have no better notions of equality and freedom, and no better views of duty to God or man, than his teachers themselves have. Such, then, being the state of things, ask us not to prepare the slave for his own utter undoing. Ask us not—O most kind and benevolent Christian teacher!—ask us not to lay the train beneath our feet, that you may no longer hold the blazing torch in vain!

Let that torch be extinguished. Let all incendiary publications be destroyed. Let no conspiracies, no insurrections, and no murders be instigated. Let the pure precepts of the gospel and its sublime lessons of peace be everywhere set forth and inculcated. In one word, let it be seen that in reality the eternal good of the slave is aimed at, and, by the co-operation of all, may be secured, and then may we be asked to teach him to read. But until then we shall refuse to head a conspiracy against the good order, the security, the morals, and against the very lives, of both the white and the black men of the South.

We might point out other respects in which men are essentially equal, or have equal rights. But our object is not to write a treatise on the philosophy of politics. It is merely to expose the errors of those who push the idea of equality to an extreme, and thereby unwisely deny the great differences that exist among men. For if the scheme or the political principles of the abolitionists be correct, then there is no difference among men, not even among the different races of men, that is worthy the attention of the statesman.

There is one difference, we admit, which the abolitionists have discovered between the master and the slave at the South. Whether this discovery be entirely original with them, or whether they received hints of it from others, it is clear that they are now fully in possession of it. The dazzling idea of equality itself has not been able to exclude it from their visions. For, in spite of this idea, they have discovered that between the Southern master and slave there is a difference of color! Hence, as if this were the only difference, in their political harangues, whether from the stump or from the pulpit, they seldom fail to rebuke the Southern statesman in the words of the poet: "He finds his fellow guilty of a skin not colored like his own;" and "for such worthy cause dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey." Shame and confusion seize the man, we say, who thus dooms and devotes his fellow-man, because he finds him "guilty of a skin!" If his sensibilities were only as soft as his philosophy is shallow, he would certainly cry, "Down with the institution of slavery!" For how could he tolerate an institution which has no other foundation than a difference of color? Indeed, if such were the only difference between the two races among us, we should ourselves unite with Mr. Seward of New York, and most "affectionately advise all men to be born white." For thus, the only difference having been abolished, all men would be equal in fact, and consequently entitled to become equal in political rights, and power, and position. But if such be not the only difference between the white and the black man of the South, then neither philosophy nor paint can establish an equality between them.

Every man, we admit, is a man. But this profound aphorism is not the only one to which the political architect should give heed. An equality of conditions, of political powers and privileges, which has no solid basis in an equality of capacity or fitness, is one of the wildest and most impracticable of all Utopian dreams. If in the divine government such an equality should prevail, it is evident that all order would be overthrown, all justice extinguished, and utter confusion would reign. In like manner, if in human government such equality should exist, it would be only for a moment Indeed, to aim at an equality of conditions, or of rights and powers except by first aming at an equality of intelligence and virtue, is not to reform—it is to demolish—the governments of society. It is, indeed, to war against the eternal order of divine Providence itself in which an immutable justice ever regins. "It is this aiming after an equality," says Aristotle, "which is the cause of seditions." But though seditions it may have stirred up, and fierce passions kindled, yet has it never led its poor deluded victims to the boon after which they have so fondly panted.

Equality is not liberty. "The French," said Napoleon, "love equality: they care little for liberty." Equality is plain, simple, easily understood. Liberty is complex, and exceedingly difficult of comprehension. The most illiterate peasant may, at a glance, grasp the idea of equality; the most profound statesman may not, without much care and thought, comprehend the nature of liberty. Hence it is that equality, and not liberty, so readily seizes the mind of the multitude, and so mightily inflames its passions. The French are not the only people who care but little for liberty, while they are crazy for equality. The same blind passion, it is to be feared, is possible even in this enlightened portion of the globe. Even here, perhaps, a man may rant and rave about equality, while, really, he may know but little more, and consequently care but little more, about that complicated and beautiful structure called civil liberty, than a horse does about the mechanism of the heavens.

Thus, for example, a Senator[160] of the United States declares that the democratic principle is "Equality of natural rights, guaranteed and secured to all by the laws of a just, popular government. For one, I desire to see that principle applied to every subject of legislation, no matter what that subject may be—to the great question involved in the resolution now before the Senate, and to every other question." Again, this principle is "the element and guarantee of liberty."

Apply this principle, then, to every subject, to every question, and see what kind of government would be the result. All men have an equal right to freedom from restraint, and consequently all are made equally free. All have an equal right to the elective franchise, and to every political power and privilege. But suppose the government is designed for a State in which a large majority of the population is without the character, or disposition, or habits, or experience of freemen? No matter: the equal rights of all are natural; and hence they should be applied in all cases, and to every possible "subject of legislation." The principle of equality should reign everywhere, and mold every institution. Surely, after what has been said, no comment is necessary on a scheme so wild, on a dream so visionary. "As distant as heaven is from earth," says Montesquieu, "so is the true spirit of equality from that of extreme equality." And just so distant is the Senator in question, with all his adherents, from the true idea of civil and political freedom.

The Senator thinks the conduct of Virginia "singular enough," because, in presenting a bill of rights to Congress, she omitted the provision of "her own bill of rights," "that all men are born[161] equally free and independent." We think she acted wisely. For, in truth and in deed, all men are born absolutely dependent and utterly devoid of freedom. What right, we ask, has the new born infant? Has he the right to go where he pleases? He has no power to go at all; and hence he has no more a right to go than he has to fly. Has he the right to think for himself? The power of thought is as yet wholly undeveloped. Has he the right to worship God according to his own conscience? He has no idea of God, nor of the duties due to him. The plain truth is, that no human being possesses a right until the power or capacity on which the enjoyment of that right depends is suitably developed or acquired. The child, for instance, has no right to think for himself, or to worship God according to the dictates of conscience, until his intellectual and moral powers are suitably developed. He is certainly not born with such rights. Nor has he any right to go where he pleases, or attempt to do so, until he has learned to walk. Nor has he the right then, for, according to the laws of all civilized nations, he is subject to the control of the parent until he reaches the lawful age of freedom. The truth is, that all men are born not equally free and independent, but equally without freedom and without independence. "All men are born equal," says Montesquieu; but he does not say they "are born equally free and independent." The first proposition is true: the last is diametrically opposed to the truth.

Another Senator[162] seems to entertain the same passion for the principle of equality. In his speech on the Compromise Bill of 1850, he says that "a statesman or a founder of States" should adopt as an axiom the declaration, "That all men are created equal, and have inalienable rights of life, liberty, and choice of pursuits of happiness." Let us suppose, then, that this distinguished statesman is himself about to establish a constitution for the people of Mississippi or Louisiana, in which there are more blacks than whites. As they all have a natural and "inalienable right" to liberty, of course he would make them all free. But would he confer upon all, upon black as well as upon white, the power of the elective franchise? Most certainly. For he has said, "We of New York are guilty of slavery still by withholding the right of suffrage from the race we have emancipated." Surely, if he had to found a State himself, he would not thus be guilty of slavery—of the one odious thing which his soul abhors. All would then be invested with the right of suffrage. A black legislature would be the consequence. The laws passed by such a body would, we fear, be no better than the constitution provided by the Senator—by the statesman—from New York.

"All men are born equal," says Montesquieu; but in the hands of such a thinker no danger need be apprehended from such an axiom. For having drank deeply of the true spirit of law, he was, in matters of government, ever ready to sacrifice abstract perfection to concrete utility. Neither the principle of equality, nor any other, would he apply in all cases or to every subject. He was no dreamer. He was a profound thinker and a real statesman. "Though real equality," says he, "be the very soul of a democracy, it is so difficult to establish, that an extreme exactness in this respect is not always convenient."

Again, he says: "All inequalities in democracies ought to be derived from the nature of the government, and even from the principle of equality. For example, it may be apprehended that people who are obliged to live by labor would be too much impoverished by public employment, or neglect the duties of attending to it; that artisans would grow insolent; and that too great a number of freemen would overpower the ancient citizens. In this case, the equality in a democracy may be suppressed for the good of the State."

Thus to give all men equal power where the majority is ignorant and depraved, would be indeed to establish equality, but not liberty. On the contrary, it would be to establish the most odious despotism on earth,—the reign of ignorance, passion, prejudice, and brutality. It would be to establish a mere nominal equality, and a real inequality. For, as Montesquieu says, by introducing "too great a number of freemen," the "ancient citizens" would be oppressed. In such case, the principle of equality, even in a democracy, should be "suppressed for the good of the State." It should be suppressed, in order to shut out a still greater and more tremendous inequality. The legislator, then, who aims to introduce an extreme equality, or to apply the principle of equality to every question, would really bring about the most frightful of all inequalities, especially in a commonwealth where the majority are ignorant and depraved.

Hence the principle of equality is merely a standard toward which an approximation may be made—an approximation always limited and controlled by the public good. This principle should be applied, not to every question, but only to such as the general good permits. For this good it "may be suppressed." Nay, it must be suppressed, if, without such suppression, the public order may not be sustained; for, as we have abundantly seen, it is only in the bosom of an enlightened public order that liberty can live, or move, or have its being. Thus, as Montesquieu advises, we deduce an inequality from the very principle of equality itself; since, if such inequality be not deduced and established by law, a still more terrific inequality would be forced upon us. Blind passion would dictate the laws, and brute force would reign, while innocence and virtue would be trampled in the dust. Such is the inequality to which the honorable senators would invite us; and that, too, by an appeal to our love of equality! If we decline the invitation, this is not because we are the enemies, but because we are the friends, of human freedom. It is not because we love equality less, but liberty more.

The legislators of the North may, if they please, choose the principle of equality as the very "element and guarantee" of their liberty; and, to make that liberty perfect, they may apply it to every possible "subject of legislation," and to "every question" under the sun. But, if we may be permitted to choose for ourselves, we should beg to be delivered from such an extreme equality. We should reject it as the very worst "element," and the very surest "guarantee" of an unbounded licentiousness and an intolerable oppression. As the "element and guarantee" of freedom for ourselves, and for our posterity, we should decidedly prefer the principle of an enlightened public order.