infant? Has he the right to go where he
pleases? He has no power to go at all; and hence he has no more a right
to go than he has to fly. Has he the right to think for himself? The
power of thought is as yet wholly undeveloped. Has he the right to
worship God according to his own conscience? He has no idea of God, nor
of the duties due to him. The plain truth is, that no human being
possesses a right until the power or capacity on which the enjoyment of
that right depends is suitably developed or acquired. The child, for
instance, has no right to think for himself, or to worship God according
to the dictates of conscience, until his intellectual and moral powers
are suitably developed. He is certainly not born with such rights. Nor
has he any right to go where he pleases, or attempt to do so, until he
has learned to walk. Nor has he the right then, for, according to the
laws of all civilized nations, he is subject to the control of the
parent until he reaches the lawful age of freedom. The truth is, that
all men are born not equally free and independent, but equally without
freedom and without independence. "All men are born equal," says
Montesquieu; but he does not say they "are born equally free and
independent." The first proposition is true: the last is diametrically
opposed to the truth.

Another Senator[162] seems to entertain the same passion for the
principle of equality. In his speech on the Compromise Bill of 1850, he
says that "a statesman or a founder of States" should adopt as an axiom
the declaration, "That all men are created equal, and have inalienable
rights of life, liberty, and choice of pursuits of happiness." Let us
suppose, then, that this distinguished statesman is himself about to
establish a constitution for the people of Mississippi or Louisiana, in
which there are more blacks than whites. As they all have a natural and
"inalienable right" to liberty, of course he would make them all free.
But would he confer upon all, upon black as well as upon white, the
power of the elective franchise? Most certainly. For he has said, "We of
New York are guilty of slavery still by withholding the _right of
suffrage_ from the race we have emancipated." Surely, if he had to found
a State himself, he would not thus be guilty of slavery--of the one
odious thing which his soul abhors. All would then be invested with the
right of suffrage. A black legislature would be the consequence. The
laws passed by such a bod