So also in our particular
case. There are different orders or classes of men in
every civilized community. The classes are politically
equal, equal in that they are free men and citizens and
have all the rights belonging to such station. Among the
several classes there can be no social equality, for they
have nothing socially in common, although the members of
each class in itself may have.
Now in these recent years there has been a great clamor
for rights. The clamor has reached West Point, and, if
no bad results have come from it materially, West Point
has nevertheless received a bad reputation, and I think
an undeserved one, as respects her treatment of colored
cadets.
A right must depend on the capacity and end or aim of
the man. This capacity and end may, and ought to be,
moral, and not political only. Equal capacities and a
like end must give equal rights, and unequal capacities
and unlike ends unequal rights, morally, of course, for
the political end of all men is the same. And therefore,
since a proper society is a moral institution where a
certain uniformity of views, aims, purposes, properties,
etc., is the object, there must be also a uniformity or
equality of rights, for otherwise there would be no
society, no social equality.
This, I apprehend, is precisely the state of affairs
in our own country. Among those who, claiming social
equality, claim it as a right, there exists the
greatest possible diversity of creeds, instincts, and
of moral and mental conditions, in which they are
widely different from those with whom they claim this
equality.
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