Charles Sumner

He may be poor, weak, humble, or black,--he may be of Caucasian, Jewish, Indian, or Ethiopian race,--he may be of French, German, English, or Irish extraction; but before the Constitution of Massachusetts all these distinctions disappear.

Here is the Great Charter of every human being drawing vital breath upon this soil, whatever may be his condition, and whoever may be his parents.

Within the sphere of their influence, no person can be created, no person can be born, with civil or political privileges not enjoyed equally by all his fellow-citizens; nor can any institution be established, recognizing distinction of…

All men are born free and equal," says the Massachusetts Bill of Rights.

All men are created equal," says the Declaration of Independence.

Its object was to efface all political or civil distinctions, and to abolish all institutions founded upon birth.

But this inequality is in no particular inconsistent with complete civil and political equality.

And permit me to say, it is a childish sophism to adduce any physical or mental inequality in argument against Equality of Rights.

It passed into other constitutions, and Napoleon, who so often trampled on the rights of Equality, dictated to the Poles the declaration, that all persons are equal before the law.

Article First places Equality among the natural, civil, and political rights of man.

It ought to be the same for all, whether it protect or punish.

Kings, nobles, and all distinctions of birth, passed away before this mighty and triumphant truth.

In the Constitutions of Government successively adopted, amid the throes of bloody struggle, the equality of men was constantly proclaimed.

Slowly recognized, they finally pass into a formula, to be acted upon, to be applied, to be defended in the concerns of life, as principles.

First appearing as a sentiment, they awake a noble impulse, filling the soul with generous sympathy, and encouraging to congenial effort.

At such a period the Encyclopedia did well in uttering important and effective truth.

The King, only a few years before, in defiance of Equality,--but in entire harmony with the conduct of the School Committee in Boston,--founded a military school for nobles only, carrying into education the distinction of Caste.

Natural or moral equality is, then, founded upon the constitution of human nature common to all men, who are born, grow, subsist, and die in the same manner.

This Equality is the principle and the foundation of Liberty.

Here we find the boldest expression of this sentiment down to that time.

This remarkable production, where science, religion, and government are discussed with revolutionary freedom, contains an article on Equality, first published in 1755.

But the Bill of Rights did not declare, nor did the genius of Somers or Maynard conceive the political axiom, that all men are born equal.

Every infant of royal blood, every noble, every vassal, is a present example, that, whatever may be the injunctions of religion or the sentiment of the heart, men under these institutions are not born equal.

An hereditary monarchy, an order of nobility, and the complex ranks of superior and inferior, established by the feudal system, all declare, not the equality, but the inequality of men, and all conspire to perpetuate this inequality.

When the Saviour gave us the Lord's Prayer, he taught the sublime doctrine of Human Brotherhood, enfolding the equality of men.