es, dissensions, and revolutions of the past.
This is the platform of the American Equal Rights Association.
"We are masters of the situation." Here black men and women are
buried in the citizen. As in the war, freedom was the key-note of
victory, so now is universal suffrage the key-note of
reconstruction.

"Negro suffrage" may answer as a party cry for an effete
political organization through another Presidential campaign; but
the people of this country have a broader work on hand to-day
than to save the Republican party, or, with some abolitionists,
to settle the rights of races. The battles of the ages have been
fought for races, classes, parties, over and over again, and
force always carried the day, and will until we settle the
higher, the holier question of individual rights. This is our
American idea, and on a wise settlement of this question rests
the problem whether our nation shall live or perish.

The principle of inequality in government has been thoroughly
tried, and every nation based on that idea that has not already
perished, clearly shows the seeds of death in its dissensions and
decline. Though it has never been tried, we know an experiment on
the basis of equality would be safe; for the laws in the world of
morals are as immutable as in the world of matter. As the
Astronomer Leverrier discovered the planet that bears his name by
a process of reason and calculation through the variations of
other planets from known laws, so can the true statesman, through
the telescope of justice, see the genuine republic of the future
amid the ruins of the mighty nations that have passed away. The
opportunity now given us to make the experiment of
self-government should be regarded by every American citizen as a
solemn and a sacred trust. When we remember that a nation's life
and growth and immortality depend on its legislation, can we
exalt too highly the dignity and responsibility of the ballot,
the science of political economy, the sphere of government?
Statesmanship is, of all sciences, the most exalted and
comprehensive, for it includes all others. Among men we find
those who study the laws of national life more liberal and
enlightened on all subjects than those who confine their
researches in special directions. When we base na