people had a natural right to alter or amend it. No man, it was further held, in this state of nature was subject to any other; that all men are equal, not physically or intellectually, but equal so far as concerns jurisdiction or authority; that no man is born to rule another. Natural rights then, are the basis of all political rights; our liberties do not come from charters nor from parchments nor from kings, but from the King of Kings.

What constituted these natural rights was then stated distinctly in the Declaration:

I. That all men are created equal.

2. All have been endowed by their Maker with certain inalienable rights of which they cannot be stripped by any power, and of which they cannot lawfully deprive themselves.

3. That among these rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

If these are truths it follows that no government can claim allegiance or obedience from man unless he agrees to give it; that all government is a contract and that, in the words of the Declaration, "Government is constituted among men for the sole purpose of protecting these rights;" that all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that when governments fail to accomplish the ends for which they were instituted, it is the right and duty of the people to alter and to abolish them.

It has become the custom in our time to decry

these statements as glittering generalities. They are nothing of the kind. You may dissent from them, you may pronounce them totally wrong, you may assert that absolute monarchy is the true form of government; yet these principles as laid down in the Declaration of Independence are just as truly the principles of government by the people, as the divine right of kings was once the foundation of absolute monarchy.

But the question which concerns us this afternoon is, did the fathers really believe - did they accept the self-evident truths? Did they embody them in the forms of government they now established? With the recommendation of May 15, 1776, every semblance of obedience to royal authority disappeared. The people of each colony, one by one, acted on the recommendation and in eleven of the thirteen colonies, in the course of a few years, they formed constitutions and governments of their own. With the teachings of the Declaration they were perfectly familiar. It was read in every city, town and village the country over, and it was printed in every newspaper. No state paper of the time was so widely circulated and so heartily endorsed. It would seem therefore no more than reasonable to expect that, if the men of 1776, really believed the bold assertions it contained, their new constitutions would be the complete embodiment of the three great rights of man, the rights for which they staked their lives, their fortunes and their sacred

honor. But an examination of these state constitutions reveals the fact that in their formation very little regard was paid to the self-evident truths, and that the very men who were loudly asserting the political equality of man went on and set up governments under which political equality had no existence.

These constitutions consist, in almost every instance, of a body of political maxims known as the Bill or the Declaration of Rights, and an assemblage of administrative provisions classified as Legislative, Executive and Judicial. The political maxims are those which a long and bitter experience had led the people of the mother country to establish as the great principles of English liberty (trial by jury, liberty of the press, habeas corpus, freedom of speech, right of petition, no excessive bail, and so on), and those which set forth the new ideas of government which had done so much to bring about the Revolution.

"All men," says the constitution of New Hampshire, are born equally free and independent; therefore, all government of right originates from the people, is founded on the consent and instituted for the general good. All men have certain natural, essential and inherent rights among which are life, liberty, the acquisition and possession of property.

"The end of the institution, maintenance and administration of government," says the constitution of Massachusetts, "is to secure the existence

of the body politic, to protect it and so secure to the individuals who compose it their natural rights and the blessings of life. Government is instituted for the common good, for the protection, safety, prosperity and happiness of the people, and not for the profit, honor, and private interest of any one man, family or class of men."

"All governments ought to be instituted," says the constitution of Pennsylvania, "for the security and protection of the community as such, and to enable the individuals who compose it to enjoy their natural rights."

"All governments," say the constitutions of Delaware and Maryland, " of right originate from the people, are founded in compact only, and instituted solely for the good of the whole; that persons entrusted with the legislative and executive powers are the trustees and servants of the public."

"All political power," says the constitution of North Carolina, 66 is vested in and derived from the people only. No man or set of men are entitled to exclusive or separate emoluments or privileges from the community, except in consideration of great public service.

In every instance in these early state constitutions, the state is presented as created by the people, and existing solely for the good of the individual. Its sole duty is stated to be to protect him in the full enjoyment of his natural and inalienable rights. Public officials are declared

to be the trustees of the people; the right of revolution is inherent in society. In no instance is the state presented as the provider of office, the creator of monopolies.

Such being the relation of the state to the individual, what were the relations of the individual to the state? All governments, said the Declaration, derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and this consent it was one of the political maxims of the time could only be given when the government participated directly in the election of the delegates who were to exercise the just powers of government. But to break away from the customs, usages, traditions of the past, and apply these broad doctrines in all their fullness to the present was not possible, and perhaps it was not expedient. Religious training and prejudice, the time-honored distinctions of rich and poor, learned and unlearned, still held sway and went very far towards maintaining a governing class, exceedingly democratic indeed as compared with the ruling classes of other lands, but still a class. Nowhere was voting and office holding thrown open to all men notwithstanding this natural right.

In New Hampshire the voter must be a Protestant and a taxpayer. Massachusetts required him to be possessed of a freehold estate yielding an income of three pounds a year, or to have a personal estate worth sixty pounds. In Connecticut the requirement was an annual income of