Page:Criticism on the Declaration of independence, as a literary document (IA criticismondecla00seld).pdf/19

 not then without the reflection that my faith in that particular, was indeed a virtue, as difficult to practise as any other connected with self-denial.

But the passage under consideration is invested with no sanctity commending it to our faith; neither does it possess a speciousness that commends it to our reason. It is neither more nor less than an uninspired and presumptous asseveration, upon a subject that no man can possibly know any thing about.

We draw our inferences from facts as they exist, or from facts as they are presented to us. And what are those facts? Under every conceivable contingency—under circumstances unlimited in their dissimilitude and inequality, are men born; under all these do they continue to live; and under them also they die. Whether all men are created equal (using the verb in its true and literal sense) can be known only to their Creator. And since there is no revelation on that point, it is as impossible for man to know any thing about it, as it is to beget himself.

But admitting the word to be used in an expanded or figurative senses; and that the creation alluded to, is to man as he is, or as he appears. How are the facts more applicable then? Still, from forms of surpassing beauty, through a long series of gradations to the most offensive deformity—from minds of the purest radiance, through like gradations, to those of the obscurity, fog and confusion of his, whose profitless aphorisms are under review—from the extremest verge of what is lovely and desirable, to the limit of all that is odious in complexion, condition or circumstance are men created. These are facts, as palpable as the continent on which we stand. No reasoning, no study, faith or patience can make them or unmake them. These are the facts, and there are no other. One might as soon reason the Andes from their foundations, as reason us out of knowledge we cannot avoid possessing.

What apology then, is there to be found for the man, who, in the face of all these facts, and against the convictions of a conscience, if he had one, took occasion upon the going forth of a solemn public document, to parade the absurd crudity of his own "that he held it to be a self-evident truth, that all men were created equal?" What national dignity have we gained for our consolation, or what national honor for our comfort, for thus publishing to the world in our first and gravest document, this swel-