member is intitled to an equal share of all the social rights. No man
can of right become possessed of a greater share: If any one usurps it,
he so far becomes a tyrant; and when he can obtain sufficient strength,
the people will feel the rod of a tyrant. Or, if this exclusive
privilege can be supposed to be held in virtue of compact, it argues a
very capital defect; and the people, when more enlightened, will alter
their compact, and extinguish the very idea.

These opinions, I conceive to be conformable to the sentiments held up
in our State Constitution. It is therein declared, that Government is
instituted for the common good; not for the profit, honor or private
interest of any one man, family, or class of men. And further, all the
inhabitants of this Commonwealth, having such qualifications, as shall
be established by their Constitution, have an equal right to elect or
be elected for the public employments.

Before the formation of this Constitution, it had been affirmed as a
self evident truth, in the declaration of Independence, very
deliberately made by the Representatives of the United States of
America in Congress assembled that, "all men are created equal, and are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." This
declaration of Independence was received and ratified by all the States
in the Union, and has never been disannulled. May we not from hence
conclude, that the doctrine of Liberty and Equality is an article in
the political creed of the United States.

Our Federal Constitution ordains that, no title of nobility shall be
granted by the United States. The framers of that Constitution probably
foresaw that such titles, vain and insignificant in themselves, might
be in time, as they generally, and I believe always have been, the