t they did not intend to assert, it
was that a Negro was a White man. As I said here, a short time ago, one
of the greatest charges they made against the British Government was,
that old King George was attempting to establish the fact practically
that all men were created Free and Equal. They charged him in the
Declaration of Independence with inciting their Slaves to insurrection.
That is one of the grounds upon which they threw off their allegiance to
the British Parliament.

"Another great misapprehension is, that the men who drafted that
Declaration of Independence had any peculiar fancy for one form of
government rather than another. They were not fighting to establish a
Democracy in this country; they were not fighting to establish a
Republican form of government in this Country. Nothing was further from
their intention.

"Alexander Hamilton, after he had fought for seven years, declared that
the British form of government was the best that the ingenuity of man
had ever devised; and when John Adams said to him, 'without its
corruptions;' 'Why,' said he, 'its corruptions are its greatest
excellence; without the corruptions, it would be nothing.'

"In the Declaration of Independence, they speak of George III., after
this fashion. They say:

"'A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define
a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free People.'

"Now, I ask any plain common-sense man what was the meaning of that?
Was it that they were opposed to a Monarchical form of government? Was
it that they believed a Monarchical form of government was incompatible
with civil liberty? No, sir; they entertained no such absurd idea.
None of them entertained it; but they say that George III, was a prince
whose character was 'marked by every act which may define a tyrant' and
that therefore he was 'unfit to be the ruler of a free People.' Had his
character not been so marked by every quality which would define a
tyrant, he might have been the fit ruler of a free People; ergo, a
monarchical form of Government was not incompatible with civil liberty.

"That was clearly the opinion of those men. I do not advocate it now;
for I have said frequently that we are wiser than our fathers, and our
children will be wiser than we are. One hundred years hence, men will
understand their own affairs much better than we do. We understand our
affairs better than those who preceded us one hundred years. But wh