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Show 106 LIBERTY AND SLAVERY. ried away by the idea of equal rights, that her generals and orators and poets were elected by the lot. This was an equality, not in theory merely, but in practice. Though the lives and fortunes of mankind were thus intrusted to the most ignorant and depraved, or to the most wise and virtuous, as the lot might determine, yet this policy was based on an equality of rights. It is scarcely necessary to add that this idea of equality prevailed, not in the better days of the Athenian democracy, hut only during its imbecility and corruption. If all men, then, have not a natural right to fill an office of government, who has this right? Who has the natural right, for example, to occupy the office of President of the United States? Certainly some men have no such right. The man, for example, who has no capacity to govern himself, but needs a guardian, has no right to superintend the affairs of a great nation. Though a citizen, he has no more right to exercise such power or authority than if he were a llottentot, or an African, or an ape. Hence, in bidding such a one to stand aside and keep aloof from such high office, no right is infringed and no injury done. Nay, right is secured, and injury prevented. ARGUMENTS OF ABOLITIONISTS. 107 Who has such a right, then ?-such natural right, or right accordii1g to the law of nature or reason? The mao, we answer, who, all things considered, is the ocst q ualificd to discharge the duties of the office. The man who, by his superior wisdom, aud virtue, and statesmanship, would usc the power of such office more cl~ fectually for the good of the whole people than would any other man. If there be one such man, and only one, he of natural right should be our President. And all the laws framed to regulate the election of President are, or should be, only so many means designed to secure the services of that man, if possible, and thereby secure the rights of all against the possession of power by the unworthy or tbe less worthy. This object, it is true, is not always attained, these means are not always successful; but this is only one of the manifold imperfections which necessarily attach to all human institutions; one of the melancholy instances in which natural and legal right run in diflerent channels. All that can be hoped, indeed, either in the construction or in the administration of human laws, is an appro~imation, more or less close to the great principles of natural justice. ' What is thus so clearly true in regard to the |