“Various disqualifications which degrade them”; “dreadful fruitfulness”: such are some of the terms in which judgment is recorded. Another letter, also to Lafayette, written as late as February 1, 1830, says:--
“Outlets for the freed blacks are alone wanted for a rapid erasure of the blot [of Slavery] from our _Republican character_.”[141]
Thus, in his opinion, was the treatment of this unhappy people inconsistent with the “Republican character.”
Hamilton follows with perhaps equal authority. Though approaching political questions from opposite points of view, we find him uniting with Franklin, Jefferson, and Madison. Here is a glimpse of the definition he would supply:--
“As long as offices are _open to all men_ and _no constitutional rank_ is established, it is pure republicanism.”[142]
Not for an oligarchy, but for _all_, is a Republic created. Then again he testifies for Equal Rights, and against _partial distinctions_:--
“There can be no truer principle than this, that _every individual of the community at large has an equal right to the protection of Government_.… We propose _a free government_. Can it be so, if _partial distinctions_ are maintained?”[143]
“A share in the sovereignty of the State, which is exercised by the citizens at large in voting at elections, is one of the most important rights of the subject, _and in a Republic ought to stand foremost in the estimation of the law_. It is that right by which we exist a free people.”[144]
“The principles of the Revolution taught the inhabitants of this country to risk their lives and fortunes in asserting their liberty, or, in other words, _their right to a share in the government_. That portion of the sovereignty to which each individual is entitled can never be too highly prized. It is that for which we have fought and bled.”[145]
More could not be said in the few words. But it is when Hamilton comes to consider the National Constitution and to expound its provisions, that, while recognizing the anomalous condition of Slavery, and exposing what he calls “the compromising expedient of the Constitution” by which “_the slave_ is divested of two fifths of _the man_,” he yet declares “the equal level of free inhabitants,” and announces, “that, if the laws were to restore the rights which have been taken away, _the negroes could no longer be refused an equal share of representation with the other inhabitants_.” Here is this important text,--which has additional authority when it is considered that it was attributed also to Madison, and indeed claimed by him, who thus acknowledged the sentiments as his own:--