h
carelessness injure another I should make full compensation, and hence
can cheerfully submit to the law compelling me to do so; but if the
law undertakes to exempt any other person from a similar liability,
I feel a keen sense of wrong. Conversely, the most strict
disciplinarian, the martinet even, if otherwise competent receives
ready obedience and respect if it is seen that he treats alike,
according to their merits, all subject to his authority. This feeling
is natural. Nature is impartial in the application of its laws. It
allows no exemption. Its fires burn the weak as well as the strong,
the child as well as the man, the poor as well as the rich. One star
differs from another star in glory, but no one of all the millions of
stars is exempt from any of the laws set by nature for stars.

This feeling of right to impartiality of treatment had some faint
expression in the Massachusetts "Body of Liberties" of 1641, in which
it was declared that the liberties, etc., therein enumerated should
be enjoyed "impartially" by all persons within the jurisdiction of
the colony. It was more distinctly recognized in the Connecticut
Declaration of 1818 and a part of the Connecticut Bill of Rights
today, "That all men when they form a social compact are equal in
rights and that no man or set of men are entitled to exclusive public
emoluments or privileges from the community." Again it appears in the
federal and some state constitutions in the provision against the
granting of titles of nobility. It seems to be at least impliedly
recognized in the XIVth amendment to the United States Constitution
in the clause that no state "shall deny any person within its
jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws," since "the equal
protection of the laws" necessarily implies protection against unequal
laws, laws favoring some at the expense of others or of the whole. If
the state favors one more than another it does deny that other equal
protection. I do not subscribe to the doctrine that "the greatest good
of the greatest number" is to be sought. The only legitimate search is
for the good of the whole number without discrimination for or against
any one. This sentiment found expression in the once popular slogan,
"Equal rights for all. Special privileges for none." I say once
popular, for today it would seem not popular in practice. True,
special privileges are still loudly denounced, but under the name of
special exemptions, they are still