The famous French founder of the school of Doctrinaires, Royer-Collard, so remarkable for sententious thought, was in the habit of saying that “the sovereignty of Reason is superior to the sovereignty of the people.” But both declare the equal rights of all. The rule of inequality is plainly unreasonable; and what a mockery is that sovereignty of the people which sanctions any denial of equal rights! In different spirit, the consummate French writer, Louis Blanc, devoted to reform, has declared that “the republic is above universal suffrage,”--meaning that even universal suffrage cannot subvert it. But in each is Equality. Universal suffrage openly proclaims this right; and what is the republic without it?
To show that our Rebel States are aristocracies or oligarchies might suffice. But we must not forget, that, born of Slavery, they have the spirit of that iniquity, so that they are essentially of a low type. Founded on color of the skin, they are, beyond question, the most senseless and disgusting of all history. Would you learn to what they must incline? Listen to the frank words of the Venetian master, the famous Father Paul, while, in a state refined by art and elevated by glory, he counsels the privileged class how to use their powers. “If a noble,” says he, “injure a plebeian, justify him by all possible means; but should that be found quite impossible, punish more in appearance than in reality. If a plebeian insult a noble, punish him with the greatest severity, that the commonalty may know how perilous it is to insult a noble.”[183] Such is the terrible rule announced in a document which taught how to make the power of Venice perpetual. But this same spirit predominates still in the Rebel States. It rages there with more revolting cruelty than Venice ever witnessed. And such is the government now claiming recognition as “republican.”
The pretension is hateful on another ground. It is nothing less than a caste, which is irreligious as well as unrepublican. A caste exists only in defiance of the first principles of Christianity and the first principles of a republic. It is heathenism in religion and tyranny in government. The Brahmins and the Sudras in India, from generation to generation, have been separated, as the two races are still separated in these States. If a Sudra presumed to sit on a Brahmin’s carpet, he was punished with banishment. But our recent Rebels undertake to play the part of Brahmins, and exclude citizens, with better title than themselves, from essential rights, simply on the ground of caste, which, according to its Portuguese origin (_casta_), is only another term for race.