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Show 46 State, especially Conquest, was the end to which the individual was expected to offer himself a victim, and in promoting which no cruelty was to be declined, no human right revered. He was merged in a great whole, called the Commonwealth, to which his whole nature was to be immolated. It was the glory of the American people, that in their Declaration of Independence they took the ground of the indestructible rights of every human being. They declared all men to be essentially equal, and each born to be free. They did not, like the Greek or Roman, assert for themselves a liberty, which they burned to wrest from other states. They spoke in the name of humanity, as the representatives of the rights of the feeblest, as well as mightiest, of their race. They published universal, everlasting principles, which are to work out the deliverance of every human being. Such was their glory. Let not the idea of Rights be erased from their children's mind& by false ideas of public good. Let not the sacredness of individual man be forgotten in the feverish pursuit of property. It is more important that the Individual should respect himself, and be respected by others, than that the wealth of both worlds should be accumulated on our shores. Natioml wealth is not the end of society. It may exist where large classes are depressed and wronged. It may undermine a nation's spirit, institutions, and independence. It 47 can have no value and no sure foundation, until the Supremacy of the Rights of the Individual is the first article of a mtion's faith, and until reverence for them becomes the spirit of public men. Perhaps it will be replied to all which has now been said, that there is an argument from experience, which invalidates the doctrines of this section. It may be said, that human rights, notwithstanding what has been said of their sacredness, do and must yield to the exigencies of real life, that there is often a stern necessity in human affairs to which they bow. I may be asketl, whether, in the history of nations, circumstances do not occur, in which the rigor of the principles, now laid clown, must be relaxed ? \Vhether, in seasons of imminent peril to the state, p•·ivate rights must not give way ? I may be asked, whether the establishment of martial Jaw and a dictator has not sometimes been justified and demanded by public danger, and whether, of course, the rights and liberties of the individual are not held at the discretion of the state. I admit, in reply, that extreme cases may occur, in which the exercise of rights and freedom may be suspended; but suspended only for their ultimate and permanent security. At such times, when the frantic fury of the many, or the usurpations of the few intm·rupt the administration of Jaw, and menace property and life, society, threatened with ruin, puts forth instinctively spasmodic efforts |
