Equal justice

“ As guardians of the public welfare, our state and federal judicial systems strive to administer equal justice to the rich and the poor, the good and the bad, the native and foreign born of every race, nationality, and religion. ”

“ Wherefore, since the law is the bond of civil society, and the justice of the law equal, by what rule can the association of citizens be held together, if the condition of the citizens be not equal? For if the fortunes of men cannot be reduced to this equality if genius cannot be equally the property of all—rights, at least, should be equal among those who are citizens of the same republic. ”

“ SEVENTH PRINCIPLE—EQUALITY OF MEN ‘The Laws of God are not imposition of will, or of power, or pleasure, but the resolutions of truth, reason and justice.’
All men are equal before the law, which must reign absolutely.
The object of punishment is not vengeance, but the prevention of crime.
Kings must rule with wisdom and justice; prince, peer and peasant alike have equal rights to just treatment, there must be no favour shown to individuals. A judge must be no ‘respecter of persons’, but administer the law with strict impartiality in every case brought before him. ”

“ There are some few points in which we obtain equality in this world, and that equality can only be obtained under a well-regulated form of society, and consists in an equal administration of justice and of laws, to which we have agreed to submit for the benefit of the whole—the equal right to live and not be permitted to starve, which has been obtained in this country. ”

“ If it imposes no more restraints than are necessary and imposes them equally, order and harmony are secured. And when we have this equal freedom with equal and only necessary restraints we have order and harmony,—in other words, justice. ”

“ All we ask for is “equal justice,” the same that is accorded to all other races who come to this country, of their free will (not forced to, as we were) , and are allowed to enjoy every privilege, unrestricted, while we are denied what is rightfully our own [64] in a country which the labor of our forefathers helped to make what it is. ”

“ In pursuing these necessary measures of relief, no injury is done to a minority, or to any individual, for the foundation on which our republic rests is equal and exact justice to all men, and the [Pg 252] equality of all men before the law. ”

“ Whether this principle shall live or die has been one of the great problems with which modern society has been engaged through the intervening periods. As a question between equal rights and unequal rights, between equal laws and unequal laws, between the rights of wealth, of rank and of official position, and the power of justice and intelligence, there can be little doubt of the ultimate result. ”

“ An equal right to justice is all the equality that can subsist in civilized society, consistent with the liberty, property, and personal security, of individuals, which would be perpetually violated by a system, to preserve which, it would be requisite continually to take from the acquisitions of the industrious, to give to the idle and the profligate. ”

“ To the unrefined savage every favour is welcome, and every present received without reserve or reflection.
The love of equality, and the love of justice, were originally the same; and although, by the constitution of different societies, unequal privileges are bestowed on their members; and although justice itself requires a proper regard to be paid to such privileges; yet he who has forgotten that men were originally equal, easily degenerates into a slave; or, in the capacity of a master, is not to be trusted with the rights of his fellow creatures. ”

“ Her appeal must not be to an equal standard of justice which she has helped to frame, administer and live by; but it must be to his generosity, his tenderness, his toleration or his chivalry—in short, to his absolute power over her. "No people can be free without an equal legal footing for all of its citizens!" exclaims the statesman, and drums beat and trumpets blare and men march and countermarch in enthusiastic response to the sentiment. ”

“ MEN As, regardless of Custom and Prejudice, Narrow-mindedness and Long-established Wrong, will bravely assert and uphold the Laws of Justice, of Nature, and of Right; I dedicate the following pages, with the hope that a straightforward inspection of the evils afflicting Society, will lead to their demolition in the only way possible—namely, by giving to Women equal rights with Men. Not till then will Society be purified, wrongdoing punished, or Man start forward along that road which shall lead to Perfection. ”

“ It seems to be an inevitable conclusion that, subject only to the limitations just mentioned, we are entitled to do what we please with our own, and this also seems to be in accord with the principles of justice, of which, indeed, the law of equal freedom is the embodiment. But does this cover the whole extent of our obligation? Every right has for its correlative a duty to be performed. Are all such duties included in the limitations upon rights that have been mentioned? ”

“ No one disputes the right of every individual to stand equal with his fellow-man before the law; which means that justice shall be equal in favor of the humble and the great. But you cannot equalize ambition, courage and ability. ”

“ Nearly allied to impartiality is the idea of equality. The justice of giving equal protection to the rights of all is maintained even when the rights themselves are very unequal, as in slavery and in the system of ranks or castes. There are the greatest differences as to what is equality in the distribution of the produce of labour ”

“ Hence, just as soon as all have been made secure in their natural rights to life, liberty and those equitable conditions which place happiness within the reach of all, sound policy, as well as equal liberty and even-handed justice demands that all should have an equal voice in the conduct of public affairs in which all are equally interested. ”

“ We in our day are apt to collocate equal with just—"just and equal," we are accustomed to say. But if justice means giving to each his own (suum cuique) , and if one person is on one level of life and another on another, then to treat them as if they were on the same level is not justice, but injustice. "Equality to those who are equal, inequality to those who are unequal"—this were the true teaching of justice. [62] "Wrong lies never in unequal rights, it lies in the claim to 'equal rights.'" [63] "The doctrine of equality! ”

“ If men are not equal then no scheme of jurisprudence, no act of justice, no movement of human indignation, no exaltation of fellowship, has any meaning. The doctrine of the equality of man is one which, like many of the great transcendental doctrines, may be proved by the results consequent upon its absence. It is in man to believe it—and all lively societies believe it. ”

“ He concluded the appeal with these words:—It becomes every man who properly appreciates his civil and religious rights and privileges, and those of posterity after him, to give his name, his influence, and exertions, in the final effort to place those rights and privileges upon the broad foundation of equal justice to all classes of the inhabitants. ”

“ Admitting the wrong that they had suffered in the past, it invited them to a new life under new conditions, offering them, on just and equal terms, their share in the social heritage. Do you suppose that there ever was a human heart so base that it did not at least know the difference between justice and injustice, and to some extent respond to it? ”

“ And, so far as restraint is concerned, this is 8the province—the sole province—of law, to protect the rights of individual freedom.
But what is equality, which must be maintained in freedom? A good illustration of what equality among the people means, may be drawn from the equality among the children of a family in the case of an equal division of the property of the deceased father. If the property is divided among them according to their respective merits, that would not be equality. ”

“ But they took no note of the harmony and fraternal feeling that must come between peoples so differing, when all have equal share in a government founded in justice, and on the broad principles of human right ”

“ A thoughtful, resolute, unique, uncompromising, unterrified, consistent, severely critical, able, fair, and honest exponent of the doctrine that Equal Liberty is the necessary basis of Social Harmony. ”

“ Foremost is the Equality of All Men. Of course, in a declaration of rights, no such supreme folly was intended as that all men are created equal in form or capacity, bodily or mental,—but simply that they are created equal in rights. ”

“ We hold these rights by virtue, of our manhood, it is said; they are inherent in it, and constitute it. But my rights bind you, and yours bind me, and yet you and I are equal; our manhoods are equal. How, then, can the manhood of either bind or morally oblige the other? ”

“ Let us put the canon of equality in a different shape, namely, that there should always be a sufficient reason for any difference in the treatment of our fellows. This rule does not imply that I should act in all cases as though all men were equal in character or mind, but that my action should in all cases be justified by some appropriate consideration. ”

“ In saying this, I beg not to be understood as denying 'the Declaration of Independence.' I understand the illustrious writer of that instrument to mean no more than this; that for good reasons, operating in the social state, all men are to be regarded as equal, so far as to have equal respect paid to their rights; to be entitled to equal protection, and to be judged by one standard of legal rectitude. Or, in other words, in the eye of the law, all men are equal. ”

“ We are all human beings and, as such, we must all be equal before the impartial and dispassionate Law, which determines our rights and duties towards the State and society. Good and bad people, I repeat, are everywhere, and the proportion is roughly the same among us as among them. ”

“ But there has arisen in recent years quite a new and distinct influence, producing legal enactment and furnishing occasion for legal development. That is the entrance into the minds of men of the comparatively new idea of individual freedom and individual equality. The idea that all men are born equal, that every man is entitled to his life, his liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ”

“ Would he be admitted to an equal share in your political rights?—would he ever be allowed to cross the threshold of your doors?—would any of you give your daughter to his son, or your son to his daughter?—would you, in any one particular, admit him to the footing of equality which any man with a white skin would claim, whose ability and worth had so raised him from the lower degrees of the social scale. ”

“ That these rights are equal is so familiar and stale an expression that it hardly need be spoken. "All men are created equal," each having rights, that are inalienable, and each having the right to resist the encroachment on his rights by another. ”

“ They defined with tolerable distinctness in what respects they did consider all men created equal--equal with "certain inalienable rights, among which, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." ”

“ the idea of equality — the equality of all men before human tribunals and human laws, as they all are equal before the divine tribunal and divine laws. ”

“ When the state finds itself in a similar position, it does the same thing.
The considerations which answer the argument of equal rights also answer the objections to treating man as a thing, and the like. ”

“ We demand freedom to establish our affairs in our way, and accord you that right. Take the hand of restraint from us. Give us our natural right to manage our own affairs, and we will respect your equal rights. ”

“ But surely it cannot be said that this common right confers on brutes, men, and angels, essential equality of rights in any practical sense whatever; for then it will follow that brutes, men, and angels have an equal right to social and political equality—a bold and reckless absurdity. ”

“ The equal rights of man, and the happiness of every individual, are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate objects of government. ”

“ Accordingly, all the leading reformers begin by piously reiterating certain phrases about equal rights for all and special privileges for none, and of government of the people, by the people, and for the people. ”

“ But strict equity in meting measure for measure to all who do wrong, would at least mark the public sense of justice, and bring a better social tone through the spirit rather than through the letter of a new legislation. ”

“ Having during the past decade closely observed, and in some measure shared in, the discussion of advanced sociological thought, I maintain with confidence the principles of equal freedom, not only in their essential truth, but in the leading applications I have made of them. ”