OCR Text |
Show 128 LIDERTY AND SI~AVERY. 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 tbe 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 t\10 only one to which the political architect should give heed. An equality of conditions, of political powers and privileges, which bas no solid basis in an equality of capacity or fitness, is one of tbe wildest and most impracticable of all Utopian dreams. If in the divine government such an equality should prevail, it is evident tbat 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 aiming 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 reigns. ·'It is this aiming after an equality," says A R 0 UM ENTS OF A DOL lTTONISTS. 129 Aristotle, "which is the cause of seditions." But though seditions it may have stirred up, and fierce passions kindled, yet has it ne,·cr 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 libetty." 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 equnlity; the most profound statesman may not, without much care and thought, comprehend the nature of liberty. lienee it is that equality, and not liberty, so readily seizes the miud of the multitude, and so mightily inflames its passions. The French are not the on:y people who caro but little for liberty, while they me crazy for equality. The same blind passion, it is to be feared, is possible even in this enlightened portion of tho globe. Even here, perhaps, a man may raut and rave about equality, while, really, he may know but little more, and consequently care but little more, about that complicated aud beautiful structure called civil libe1ty, than a horse does about the mechanism of the heavens. I |