Page:Criticism on the Declaration of independence, as a literary document (IA criticismondecla00seld).pdf/20

 ling axiom, as contemptible for its inapplicability, as for its falsehood? Neither the Divine government, nor any human government, with which history or experience have made us acquainted, have treated men as created equal, or as being equal; and for the best of all reasons. It is an impossibility. The attempt would confound all distinctions between right and wrong, good and had, useful and useless. The human government that should attempt it, would attempt its own nullification. It might as well attempt the task of singing the dirge at its own funeral.

Nevertheless, it is not improper that men should be contemplated as equals, and treated as such in several particulars. Courts of justice, and governments too, may be instituted for this purpose among others. It is not, however, their whole duty. It is certainly as much a part that duty, and as an agreeable a function. of it, to create inequalities between the good and bad, as to level them under different circumstances.

Supposing the author of the Declaration had asserted among his self-evident truths, that he held the heavens to be made of brass!! Certainly there are more appearances at times to justify such assertion, than there ever was to justify those he has made. Would any man have practised under such a belief? Would any man have shaped his conduct to that contingency? And if they did not, would not their conduct be satisfactory evidence that they did not believe the assertion? Men have not altered their conduct since the marvelous developement "that all men are created equal." The author of the statement never shaped his to that end. This is as good testimony as can ever be got, that neither he, nor any one else, ever practically believed the statement true. And it is to be questioned, whether theoretically, the author, or any other, ever gave credence to it. For it is quite difficult for me to conceive how a man can have a belief, upon a subject, upon which he can have no knowledge. That difficulty, I apprehend, is irremoveable. If the assertion had been, that all men are created unequal, we might with some propriety have put credence in it; because a great multitude of analogies lead to that supposition. We have what amounts to some knowledge on that point. But when the assertion is, "that all men are created equal," we possess no fact, circumstance, analogy or revelation, that touches the