CHARLES BURCHARD

We live … in an age of progressive democracy. ... In its political effects it discards the prerogative of a few to govern and looks to the rights of all. And whether you deem it practicable or not, you, who prattle about democracy, this spirit is opening a grand law of humanity more comprehensive than all others, that looks farther than the skin to say who shall have rights and who shall be maintained in the free enjoyment of what the God of nature has given them. You cannot guide this tendency of the age to sympathize alone with the serfs of Europe and the barbarians of Asia and leave untouched and unnoticed those in our midst who suffer either from the oppression of laws or for want of their protection.

We live … in an age of progressive democracy. ... In its political effects it discards the prerogative of a few to govern and looks to the rights of all. And whether you deem it practicable or not, you, who prattle about democracy, this spirit is opening a grand law of humanity more comprehensive than all others, that looks farther than the skin to say who shall have rights and who shall be maintained in the free enjoyment of what the God of nature has given them. You cannot guide this tendency of the age to sympathize alone with the serfs of Europe and the barbarians of Asia and leave untouched and unnoticed those in our midst who suffer either from the oppression of laws or for want of their protection.