The unnatural practice of the ownership of man, having raised the slaveholder to the stature of a petty tyrant in the affairs of the nation, as well as upon his own plantation, had worked a most pernicious influence over the whole Union.

The institutions of freedom and universal equality fostered in one section, and encouraged by free education to all, and the acknowledged dignity of labor, contrasted forcibly with the prohibition of education, inequality of political privileges, and the enslavement of man and servility of the laboring masses of the other. These opposite elements, expanding with the growth of the nation, divided the advocates of freedom and the upholders of slavery into distinct and conflicting elements-the one proclaiming the natural and constitutional equality of all men, the other upholding by moral and divine law the inferiority and subordination of certain classes. The conflict and incompatibility of these conditions within a government declaring by its fundamental law the equality of all men, can be reconciled only by the belief that the love of power is most potent, even in republics, in undermining the foundations of national freedom; of usurping the rights of the masses, and even converting the bodies of men into the property of self-constituted rulers and tyrants.

It was the thirst for power that from the earliest period of human existence arrayed man against his fellow-man. It was the spirit of domination that prompted the first person born into the world to become the murderer of his brother. Love of power lifts with bloody hand the jeweled crown upon the tyrant's brow; erects political and ecclesiastical thrones, from which issue cruel mandates and absurd bulls to awe the multitude into subjection. Love of power in the name of liberty has held aloft the

red flag of the crusader and lit the inquisitorial pyre. For its sake, man against man and nation against nation have deluged the earth in blood. Its influence brought proud Greece and Rome to the dust, and for its sake Cæsar fell.

The history of nations teaches that where the powers of government are in the hands of a single person or favored classes, the murmurings of the people, like the swell of the ocean, only awaiting a breeze to stir them into mighty billows to dash their fury against their prison walls, are the dread visitors of the tyrant's usurpation. Ignorance and superstition are the strong walls and safeguards encircling civil and ecclesiastical thrones. The epaulet and mitre cling closely around the enemies of freedom, while the exercise of free thought and universal education gnaw at the vitals of "God-ordained kings."

Freedom of thought, freedom of speech and freedom of worship are inherent rights of mankind; but the ruins of departed governments, the shadows of bygone ages, all teach us that without universal education these great boons cannot be enjoyed nor the liberty of the masses perpetuated. Liberty-once the proud watchword of those who struggled to be free-sleeps dead and cold amidst the ruins of ancient cities, whose glory fell beneath the shadow of the church and within sight of the blaze of the campfire, but beyond the pale of the school-house.

In the affairs of government, the American Republic has not been entirely free from danger incident to ignorance, superstition and fanaticism. Among minorities of the people, lingering shadows of vassalage, intolerance and royalty have continuously thrown themselves athwart the path of liberty, and with desperate effrontery have, in the very face of universal political and religious freedom, erected their thrones of insolence.

The wisdom of the American people, ever engrafting upon their fundamental law new guarantees of liberty, declared by the first amendment to the Federal Constitution the religious freedom of the people, and their right to worship as to them might seem fit. How completely the "lords temporal and the lords spiritual " of America annulled these sacred boons, may be seen by referring to the several State constitutions, and the struggle of ecclesiastical bodies to engraft new dogmas of religious faith in that sacred instrument, upon which the religious freedom of all, as well as the life of the nation itself, is founded.

Among the many powerful arguments in the history of the human race in favor of the will of the people in the affairs of government, is the wonderful development of the Republic of America. Few persons, watching the liberal spirit of the people, the universal freedom of all, and the magnitude to which the nation has sprung, will be willing to regard as an experiment the institutions of freedom in the New World, but will regard the sovereign power of the people, the rule to which all governments must conform so soon as the masses feel their strength; and with the light of liberty of conscience and manhood suffrage pierce the delusive veil of royalty, and expel the phantom god that ordains kings.

A prevailing opinion among men is, that in republics all the people vote, and all the people possess equal political privileges. But such is not the case. Such a condition would be a physical impossibility and a political absurdity. In America, a majority of all the male citizens twenty-one years of age and upwards constitute the ruling power; so that, as the persons of the male sex over twenty-one are but a small minority of the people, properly speaking, the people do not govern in a political

sense. America, with a population of forty million, polls a vote of less than six million, and, as the smallest fraction over half of that number will constitute a majority of the voters, three million may govern the nation.

Previous to the rebellion of 1861, and through the four succeeding years of the war, four million of colored people were held in slavery in the southern part of the Union. By the Emancipation Proclamation of the first of January, 1863, these persons were made free; and, by subsequent amendments to the Federal Constitution and acts of Congress, all of the former slaves of the male sex of twenty-one years of age and upwards, if born within the limits of the Republic, were declared entitled to the elective franchise. These acts at once gave to the voters of the nation seven hundred thousand citizens of this new element, and added to the party of national progress the former slave, changed to the stature of a citizen, clothed with the power and political privileges of his former master. Thus, by the genius of universal emancipation, proscriptive codes, caste, auction-block, scourge and shackles-relics of barbarism-were swept from the land, the spirit of the Declaration of Independence asserted, and, for the first time in America, the equal protection of the law was extended to every human being within the jurisdiction of the Republic, and the equal rights of man established.

Emancipation having lifted the former slave to political freedom, and the rights of all men before the law being an established fact, murmurings are heard for greater political privileges. A majority of six million of people govern forty million-all the males under twenty-one years of age, the females of all ages, and aliens in the Republic being governed by this small minority of the people.

In advocacy of an extension of the elective franchise, it is cited that a declared principle of republican government is, that the people rule, and that those governed shall have a voice in the creating of the laws. This doctrine, carried to its conclusion, would place the ballot in the hands of every person of each sex and of every age, from the cradle to the grave, rendering the fulfillment of the privilege itself a physical impossibility, and degrading to a mere farce the most important affairs of the nation, and endanger the life of the Republic.

The word people, in its broadest sense, would include all, or at least a majority of all the people. In its political meaning it implies that the affairs of government are in the hands of persons, and not controlled by a single individual. The use of the words, "we the people," in the affairs of government, is a misnomer of the governing class, unless all classes outside of the male citizens twentyone years of age are ignored; and as they constitute a vast majority of the people, their physical identity is not easily dispensed with.

It must be clear to the simplest mind that the participation of all the governed in the making of the laws to which they are subject, and the equal political privileges of the people, are not only impracticable, but utter impossibilities. In matters of legislation, elections, and even in judicial decisions, majorities prevail, and in all such cases, however large the minorities, the action of the majority is binding upon them, although those in the minority did not only not consent, but violently opposed the action of the majority.

Equality before the law must be constantly distinguished from political equality. The one extends the equal protection, benefits and privileges of the laws to every human being within the jurisdiction of the nation; the other places in the hands of those regarded most competent to