Page:African slavery regarded from an unusual stand-point.djvu/3

 inscribing his name as hero, martyr, saint, in the azure sky, far, far above the greatest patriots and heroes of all time. We repeat, that if we can only reply to the appeals to passion and feeling in which the Opposition speakers and editors indulge, in reference to the Constitution, that the people will tear to pieces a paper obstacle, and that it should be so treated. But we consider the idea, or principle, or theory, which is at the basis of the Opposition party, to be radically unsound. We hold that this excitement is founded upon an error; that this modern idea of the equality of the races of men is disproved by the experience of the world and sound science. We propose to meet this fundamental error of the Opposition with the antagonistic fundamental truth; to their belief in the equality of all races of men, and consequently their right to equal political privileges, to reply by the proof that such an idea is the conception of moon-struck theorists and builders of castles in the air.

We will, first, show the manner in which this incorrect theory originated, and then briefly refute it. France may claim the credit of it, and in the eighteenth century it gained force. Then arose a group of literary men who have given direction to public opinion throughout the world. Jean Jacques Rosseau was perhaps the most conspicuous author who prepared the way for the French Revolution and the great social and political changes which succeeded it. The fundamental idea of Rousseau and his school was the equality of all men, in a state of nature. This equality, he asserted, was lost through unjust laws and vicious social customs. He held up, in every way, the state of nature as the desirable one, and looked upon arts, science, and government as tending to debase human character, and make distinctions between men when God had intended that all should be perfectly equal. The natural rights of man were the texts of most of his writings, and he insisted that all societies, however constituted, had robbed humanity of its rights. His magic pen, with the assistance of almost the whole literary class of his day, brought the civilized world to look upon society as defective and seek some means of amelioration. Thus arose the Socialists, the Saint Simonians, the Fourierites, the Red Republicans and different organizations which believed in the necessity of destroying society as it then existed, to found it upon some basis which should be in accordance with the natural equality of men. These ideas gradually impregnated all the educated classes of Europe. Despots, like Frederick the Second, of Prussia, and the slave-holding aristocracy of France and Europe, united with literateurs who did not possess a sou, in adopting those attractive ideas, while all amused themselves with essays upon the subject. The result was the French Revolution, which became a triumph of all those idealogues who were determined at any cost to reconstitute society. They were radical, for they cut off the heads of the great and noble; they dethroned the Deity and substituted the goddess of reason; they established a new system of government, in accordance with a very logical paper constitution, even changing the length of the week, the names of the months and the number of the years. They were determined to commence their reformation of society unencumbered by traditions or customs or ancient ideas. From the establishment of the French Republic upon the basis of liberty, equality, and fraternity, was to date a new era—perhaps the inauguration of the miilenium. Against this general madness which had pervaded France, the monarchs of Europe and ministry of Great Britain organized immense armies, but the French Directory inspired the troops of France with their fanatical ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity, and