Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/218

THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS upon her social institutions; and the sacred Declaration of Independence has been invoked to maintain the position of the equality of the races. That Declaration of Independence is to be construed by the circumstances and pur- poses for which it was made. The communities were declaring their independence; the people of those communities were asserting that no man was born — to use the language of Mr. Jefferson — ^booted and spurred to ride over the rest of mankind; that men w^ere created equal — ^mean- ing the men of the political community; that there was no divine right to rule; that no man loherited the right to govern; that there were no classes by which power and place descended ^o families, but that all stations were equalty within the grasp of each member of the body politic. These were the great principles they announced; these were the purposes for which they made their declaration ; these were the ends to which their enunciation was directed. They have no reference to the slave, else how happened it that among the items of arraignment made against George III. was that he endeavored to do just what the Norfch had been endeavoring of late to do — to stir up insurrection among our slaves? Had the Declaration announced that the negroes were free and equal, how was the prince to be arraigned for stirring up in- surrection among them? And how was this to be enumerated among the high crimes which caused the Colonies to sever their connection 208