find their complete expression. It will be observed that equality
is the essence of it all. In fact, any recognition of an
inequality of rights is fatal to liberty.

Observe, furthermore, that those rights inhere in the individual,
are part of his existence, and not the gift of any man or
aggregation of men. If they were, equality under a despotism
might find its justification in the postulate just as well as
equality under a republic. Caesarean Democracy could claim like
paternity with American Democracy. The assumption, then, that
freedom in any of its forms is a privilege conceded by society is
utterly unwarrantable, because society itself is a concession
from the individual--the liberty of each limited by the like
liberty of all--and such limitation is what society or Government
represents. And it is in this sense, and flowing from this axiom,
that the rights of franchise originally appertain to all alike;
for franchise is in itself nothing more than a mode of
participating in the common Government, and represents only the
interest each has therein. That limitations may attach thereto,
just as they attach to freedom of speech or freedom of action, is
perfectly true; but they must be equal limitations, applicable to
all alike, growing out of the social relation, and not leveled at
the inherent right of any individual or class. Thus the exclusion
of criminals from the franchise, the designation of terms of
minority as connected with the exercise of political duties, the
regulation of the admission to citizenship of persons coming from
foreign countries, find their justification in a principle which,
so far from recognizing in Government or society a purely
arbitrary control of the rights and exercise of self-government
or personal liberty, brings it down within rigid and narrow
limits of equality and necessity.

There are those, and I am sorry some such have arisen in the
Senate to-day, who seek to escape this conclusion, and put the
blush upon all free government by affirming, as I have said, that
the right of franchise is a purely political right, neither
inherent nor inalienable, and may be divested by the citizen or
the State at will. The consideration mentioned, that the right of
franchise is neither more nor less than the right of