In other days, while the sinister influence prevailed, the States were surrounded by a Chinese wall so broad that horsemen and chariots could travel upon it abreast; but that wall has now been beaten down, and the citizen everywhere is under the protection of the same Equal Laws, not only without distinction of color, but also without distinction of State.
What makes us a Nation? Not armies, not fleets, not fortifications, not commerce reaching every shore abroad, not industry filling every vein at home, not population thronging the highways; none of these make our Nation. The national life of this Republic is found in the principle of Unity, and in the Equal Rights of all our people,--all of which, being national in character, are necessarily placed under the great safeguard of the Nation. Let the National Unity be assailed, and the Nation will spring to its defence. Let the humblest citizen in the remotest village be assailed in the enjoyment of Equal Rights, and the Nation must do for that humblest citizen what it would do for itself. And this is only according to the original promises of the Declaration of Independence, and the more recent promises of the Constitutional Amendments, the two concurring in the same national principles.
Do you question the binding character of the Great Declaration? Then do I invoke the Constitutional Amendments. But you cannot turn from either; and each establishes beyond question the boundaries of national power, making it coextensive with the National Unity and the Equal Rights of All, originally declared and subsequently assured. Whatever is announced in the Declaration is essentially National, and so also is all that is assured. The principles of the Declaration, reinforced by the Constitutional Amendments, cannot be allowed to suffer. Being common to all, they must be under the safeguard of all. Nor can any State set up its local system against the universal law. Equality implies universality; and what is universal must be national. If each State is left to determine the protection of Equal Rights, then will protection vary according to the State, and Equal Rights will prevail only according to the accident of local law. There will be as many equalities as States. Therefore, in obedience to reason, as well as solemn mandate, is this power in the Nation.