In exact ratio as nations or individuals emerge from the night of ignorance, selfishness and barbarism, will the fact dawn upon them that all humanity are born "free and equal," irrespective of race, sex, financial conditions, or educational advantages. The logic of this fact holds as good with individuals as with nations; for a bigoted, ignorant, narrow-minded man has all the characteristics of the banditti of the Middle Ages, whose trade was to war upon commerce and honest industry, using their baronial castles for storing plunder.
The chains of slavery have been flung from the limbs of the African, and a noble war is being waged in behalf of honest labor; and now the question is asked: Shall one half of the community prevent the other half from having a voice in the making of the laws in which one party is as much interested as the other? The operation of such oppression is to prevent the party deprived of the ballot from defence; for it has come to pass that it is ballots that are used in defence of liberty, instead of bayonets. The practical results of this is seen in the departments of the government, who pay one-third more to the party who have a vote, than to those who have no vote.
There exists a written law against the disfranchised. But there is an unwritten law which works still greater hardship and injustice. Society regards the transgressions of those who hold votes with singular leniency, while the other party are always condemned and never forgiven, except by Christ, who was just. The one party is regarded as simply "sowing his wild oats;" the other is blamed as the tempter.
