rallel to it
in human history, it can only be that of the Roman Emperors, who,
from the days when Julius Caesar substituted a military despotism in
the place of a republic, among the offices which they always
concentrated upon themselves, was that of tribune of the people. A
Roman Emperor tribune of the people, is an exact parallel to that
feature in the Constitution of the United States which makes the
master the representative of his slave.'--'The Constitution of the
United States expressly prescribes that no title of nobility shall
be granted by the United States. The spirit of this interdict is not
a rooted antipathy to the grant of mere powerless empty _titles_,
but to titles of _nobility_; to the institution of privileged orders
of men. But what order of men under the most absolute of monarchies,
or the most aristocratic of republics, was ever invested with such
an odious and unjust privilege as that of the separate and exclusive
representation of less than half a million owners of slaves, in the
Hall of this House, in the Chair of the Senate, and in the
Presidential mansion?'--'This investment of power in the owners of
one species of property concentrated in the highest authorities of
the nation, and disseminated through thirteen of the twenty-six
States of the Union, constitutes a privileged order of men in the
community, more adverse to the rights of all, and more pernicious to
the interests of the whole, than any order of nobility ever known.
To call government thus constituted a democracy, is to insult the
understanding of mankind. To call it an aristocracy, is to do
injustice to that form of government. Aristocracy is the government
of _the best_. Its standard qualification for accession to power
_is merit_, ascertained by popular election recurring at short
intervals of time. If even that government is prone to degenerate
into tyranny, what must be the character of that form of polity in
which the standard qualification for access to power is wealth in
the possession of slaves? It is doubly tainted with the infection of
riches and of slavery. _There is no name in the language of national
jurisprudence that can define it_--no model in the records of
ancient history, or in the political theories of Aristotle, with
which it can be likened. It was introduced into the Constitution of
the United States by an equivocation--a representation of property
under the name of persons. Little did the members of the Conven