untrammeled and free to bless the lowest as well as the highest. It
was not right and never could be made right, to forbid working
lawfully that all men might be free. Slavery debased--freedom lifted
up. Slavery corrupted, freedom purified. Freedom might be abused, but
slavery was itself a colossal abuse.

He was no dreaming visionary, but stated with commanding clearness
the doctrine of equality before the law, or political equality,
distinguishing it from social equality. In old Independence Hall, in
1861, he said of the Colonies: "I have often enquired of myself what
great principle or idea it was that kept this confederacy so long
together. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the
Colonies from the mother land, but the sentiment in the Declaration
of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this
country, but I hope to the world for all future time. It was that
which gave promise that in due time the weight should be lifted from
the shoulders of all men." He held that instrument to teach that
"nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the
world to be trodden on, degraded and imbruted by its fellows."

We search vainly for a clearer and terser statement of the true
theory of equality than he gave last autumn in an address to a
Western regiment. "We have, as all will agree, a free government,
where _every man has a right to be equal with every other man_." Has
a _right to be!_ Take the fetters from his limbs, take the load of
disability from his shoulders, give him room in the arena, and then
if he cannot succeed with others, the failure is his. _But he has the
right_ TO TRY. You have no right to forbid the trial. If he will try
for wealth, fame, political position, he has the right. Let him
exercise it and enjoy what he lawfully wins.