Nor is it a self-evident truth, as declared; for no truth is self-evident which is not universal.

The asserted limitation destroys the original Declaration, making it a ridiculous sham, instead of that sublime Magna Charta before which kings, nobles, and all inequalities of birth must disappear as ghosts of night at the dawn.

Behind the embattled armies were ideas, and the idea on our side was Equality in Rights, which on the other side was denied.

The Nation insisted that all men are created equal; the Rebellion insisted that all men are created unequal.

It was that which gave promise that in due time the weight should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance.

But if this country cannot be saved without giving up that principle, I was about to say I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it.

I have said nothing but what I am willing to live by, and, if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, to die by.

This, our new Government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

The victory of the war is vain without the grander victory through which the Republic is dedicated to the axiomatic, self-evident truth declared by our fathers, and reasserted by Abraham Lincoln.

With this mighty truth as a guiding principle, the National Constitution is elevated, and made more than ever a protection to the citizen.

What is the Republic, if it fails in this loyalty?

What is the National Government, coextensive with the Republic, if fellow-citizens, counted by the million, can be shut out from equal rights in travel, in recreation, in education, and in other things, all contributing to human…

Where is that great promise by which “the pursuit of happiness” is placed, with life and liberty, under the safeguard of axiomatic, self-evident truth?

Each person, whether Senator or citizen, is always free to choose who shall be his friend, his associate, his guest.

His house is his “castle”; and this very designation, borrowed from the Common Law, shows his absolute independence within its walls; nor is there any difference, whether it be palace or hovel.

He walks the streets, but always subject to the prevailing law of Equality; nor can he appropriate the sidewalk to his own exclusive use, driving into the gutter all whose skin is less white than his own.

In the days of Slavery it was an oft-repeated charge, that Emancipation was a measure of social equality; and the same charge became a cry at the successive efforts for the right to testify and the right to vote.

And this is the contrivance by which a transcendent right, involving a transcendent duty, is evaded: for Equality is not only a right, but a duty.

How vain to argue that there is no denial of Equal Rights when this separation is enforced!

Separation implies one thing for a white person and another thing for a colored person; but Equality is where all have the same alike.

There can be no substitute for Equality,--nothing but itself.

Even if accommodations are the same, as notoriously they are not, there is no Equality.

In the process of substitution the vital elixir exhales and escapes: it is lost, and cannot be recovered; for Equality is found only in Equality.

Assuming--what is most absurd to assume, and what is contradicted by all experience--that a substitute can be an equivalent, it is so in form only, and not in reality.

Every such assumption is an indignity to the colored race, instinct with the spirit of Slavery; and this decides its character.