Equal representation

“ If we are to be considered as a nation, all state distinctions must be abolished, the whole must be thrown into hotchpot, and when an equal division is made, then there may be fairly an equality of representation. ”

“ The principal one is, that the consent of every State is necessary ; the other, that the members are obliged to consult their constituents upon all occasions. We lose an equal representation ; we represent the people. ”

“ Right Reason and the spirit of a free constitution require that the representation of the whole people should be as equal as possible. A perfect equality of representation has been thought impracticable ”

“ The working classes demand to be represented, not because they are poor, but because they are human. No working man with whom I have conversed desires that the richer classes should be unrepresented, but only that their representation should not exceed what is due to their numbers; that all classes should have, man for man, an equal amount of representation. He does not desire that the majority should be alone represented. He desires that the majority should be represented by a majority, and the minority by a minority, and he only needs to have it shown to him how this can be done. ”

“ It requires, it is believed, but time and perseverance in civil associations, to lead them to the same results arrived at by other barbarous nations, and to demonstrate to them the value and importance of a general political confederation, founded on the principles of equal rights and equal representation, supported by public virtue and intelligence. ”

“ I hear many ingenious arguments to persuade us that an unequal representation is a very good thing. If we had been born and bred under an unequal representation, we might bear it ; but to set out with an unequal representation, is unreasonable. It is said the great Colonies will swallow up the less. ”

“ And yet, notwithstanding the declaration of our Revolutionary fathers, "all men created equal," "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed," "taxation and representation inseparable"—notwithstanding all these grand enunciations, our government was founded upon the blood and bones of half a million human beings, bought and sold as chattels in the market. Nearly all the original thirteen States had property qualifications which disfranchised poor white men as well as women and negroes. ”

“ So much importance do I attach to the emancipation of those who already have votes, but whose votes are useless, because always outnumbered—so much should I hope from the natural influence of truth and reason, if only secured a hearing and a competent advocacy, that I should not despair of the operation even of equal and universal suffrage, if made real by the proportional representation of all minorities, on Mr. ”

“ Thus, at the very beginning, did the fathers see the necessity of the universal application of the great principle of equal rights to all—in order to produce the desired result—a harmonious union and a homogeneous people. ”

“ All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that, though the will of the majority is, in all cases, to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate which would be oppression. ”

“ But he is born with the right of becoming a man without hindrance; and I ask the honorable gentleman, as an American citizen and political philosopher, whether, if every man is not born a voter, he is not born with the right of becoming a voter upon equal terms with other men? What else is the meaning of the phrase which I find in the New York Tribune of Monday, and have so often found there, "The radical basis of government is equal rights for all citizens." ”

“ The whole voting body are equals. Each, too, is free. No King, no Noble, is allowed to trench upon his freedom. So free is each that no will of the majority is binding upon him, except by his own consent. Here is equality indeed! Equality pushed so far that each man is not only the equal of every other—but of all others together;—the equal of the combined nation.
These men are brave, hardy, and, as you have seen, free, equal, and allowed more rights than the citizens of any republic before or since. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We simply ask that you secure the practical application of the immutable principles of our government to all, without distinction of race, color or sex. And we urge our demand now, because you have now the opportunity and the power to take this onward step in legislation. The nations of the earth stand watching and waiting to see if our Revolutionary idea, "all men are created equal," can be realized in government. ”

“ That I will give every ounce of my energy and my soul to wage a campaign that could rally all of America -- not just Democrats or Republicans, but all citizens -- to this fundamental ideal -- that in a democracy, all have a right to be equal citizens. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This Society calls itself the Equal Rights Association. That I understand to be an association which has no distinction of sex, class, or color. Congress does not seem to understand the meaning of the term universal. I understand the word universal to include All. Congress understood that Universal Suffrage meant the white man only. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It gives to the great principle of human equality a new expansion and application. It makes all men, in the enjoyment of the electoral franchise, whatever their diversities of intelligence, education, or wealth, or wheresoever they may be within the borders of the Commonwealth, whether in small town or in populous city, absolutely equal at the ballot-box.
I know that there are persons, Sir, who do not hesitate to assail the whole doctrine of the equality of men, as enunciated in our Declaration of Independence and in our Bill of Rights. ”

“ The raising up of the human being without respect of persons is the constant and only rational motive of the democratic policy. Contrast with this conception that precious notion of your contemporaries as to restricting suffrage. Recognizing the material disparities in the circumstances of individuals, they proposed to conform the rights and dignities of the individual to his material circumstances instead of conforming the material circumstances to the essential and equal dignity of the man. ”

“ Soon, they began to insist that inasmuch as Colour, which was a second Nature, had destroyed the need of aristocratic distinctions, the Law should follow in the same path, and that henceforth all individuals and all classes should be recognized as absolutely equal and entitled to equal rights. ”

“ While, therefore, equality of condition is out of the question, one thing is plain,—that equal rights, equal laws, and an equal administration of these laws—so that the rich and the poor, the high and the lowly, the citizen and the officeholder, shall all stand on the same footing—are the ends and designs of a good government; and every person should so use his power as to establish such ends and designs. ”

“ The Citizens are taken into the Pay of the State.—It was a fixed idea of Pericles that in a democracy there should be not only an equal distribution of political rights among all classes, but also an equalization of the means and opportunities of exercising these rights, as well as an equal participation by all in social and intellectual enjoyments. ”

“ Looking at democracy in the way in which it is commonly conceived, as the rule of the numerical majority, it is surely possible that the ruling power may be under the dominion of sectional or class interests, pointing to conduct different from that which would be dictated by impartial regard for the interest of all. Suppose the majority to be whites, the minority negroes, or vice versâ: is it likely that the majority would allow equal justice to the minority? ”

“ This principle contains the program of our political existence. It is the most progressive, for it takes even the lowliest members of the human family out of their degradation, and inspires them with the elevating consciousness of equal human dignity; the most conservative, for it makes a common cause of individual rights. From the equality of rights springs identity of our highest interests; you cannot subvert your neighbors' rights without striking a dangerous blow at your own. ”

“ In just association with this humanity will be the triumph of Equal Rights, when the promises of the great Declaration are all fulfilled, and our people are united, as never before, in the enduring fellowship of a common citizenship. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The power to legislate implies the power to discriminate; and the best way consequently for a good democracy of equal rights to avoid the danger of discrimination will be to organize the state so that its power for ill will be rigidly restricted. ”

“ DEMOCRACY AND DISCRIMINATION The principle of equal rights has always appealed to its more patriotic and sensible adherents as essentially an impartial rule of political action—one that held a perfectly fair balance between the individual and society, and between different and hostile individual and class interests. ”

“ One sound democratic principle fully recognized and carried to its logical results in our government, declaring all citizens equal before the law, would soon chase away the metaphysical mists and fogs that cloud our political views in so many directions. ”

“ The problem of the two races living together in the same community with equal political rights is a difficult one, and has come to be regarded by men of all parties as one that can only be settled by each state or community for itself. ”

“ I need not enter further into the subject than to say, that we established a system of practically universal suffrage, of equality in representation, a just share in taxation for the support of the State, and equality in the benefits of public education, and in all those blessings which are derived from the freedom of a free people. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Everyone owes everyone recognition as an equal. No one shall be discriminated against on the grounds of race, descent, nationality, language, sex, sexual orientation, social status, age, disability, religious, philosophical or political conviction. Article 2 All people are equal before the public authorities. ”

“ It was against such a form of society that our ancestors revolted; they had a new theory of government, and established a new form—a republic, owned and run by its citizens, all standing on an equal plane. The process of evolution in the political world is still going on, and some day we shall see a world-wide federation of republics, in which the human race will share equal rights. ”

“ Conceiving that all men, wherever placed, have equal rights, and are equally entitled to confidence, he viewed without apprehension the period when a few states should contain the superior number of people. ”

“ I do not propose the plurality as a thing in itself undesirable, which, like the exclusion of part of the community from the suffrage, may be temporarily tolerated while necessary to prevent greater evils. I do not look upon equal voting as among the things which are good in themselves, provided they can be guarded against inconveniences. ”

“ And yet, though few persons stand up for the principle of equality of representation, I cannot escape the conclusion that it has had a good deal to do with the matter, and that the Government will find it exceedingly difficult to point out what other principle than that of a sort of approximation towards numerical equality has guided them. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The abolition of class legislation, and of special privileges in the government, and the adoption of equal suffrage and eligibility to office, without distinction of race, religious creed, property, or sex. ”

“ Bias and prejudice are apparent in all the phrases of the new legislators. The nation had suffered from a multitude of exclusions and privileges; its representatives issued the following declaration: All men are equal by nature and before the law; an ambiguous and redundant declaration. Men are equal by nature: does that mean that they are equal in size, beauty, talents, and virtue? No; they meant, then, political and civil equality. Then it would have been sufficient to have said: All men are equal before the law. ”