tion
be best attained? and this is the question of government which,
according to the Declaration, is established for the security of
these rights. The British theory was that they could be better
secured by an intelligent few than by the ignorant and passionate
multitude. Goldsmith expressed it in singing:

"For just experience shows in ever soil,
That those who think must govern those who toil."

But nobody denies that the government of the best is the best
government; the only question is how to find the best, and common
sense replies:

"The good, 'tis true, are heaven's peculiar care;
But who but heaven shall show us who they are?"

Our fathers answered the question of the best and surest
protection of natural right by their famous phrase, "the consent
of the governed." That is to say, since every man is born with
equal natural rights, he is entitled to an equal protection of
them with all other men; and since government is that protection,
right reason and experience alike demand that every person shall
have a voice in the government upon perfectly equal and
practicable terms; that is, upon terms which are not necessarily
and absolutely insurmountable by any part of the people.

Now these terms can not rightfully be arbitrary. But the argument
of the honorable gentleman from Schenectady, whose lucid and
dignified discourse needs no praise of mine, and the arguments of
others who have derived government from society, seemed to assume
that the political people may exclude and include at their
pleasure; that they may establish purely arbitrary tests, such as
height, or weight, or color, or sex. This was substantially the
squatter sovereignty of Mr. Douglas, who held that the male white
majority of the settlers in a territory might deprive a colored
minority of all their rights whatever; and he declared that they
had the right to do it. The same right that this Convention has
to hang me at this moment to that chandelier, but no other right.
Brute force, sir, may do anything; but we are speaking of rights,
and of rights under this Government, and I deny that the people
of the State of New York can rightfully, that is, according to
right reason and the principles of this Government derived from
it, permanen