“As great a lawyer as he was, he would never suffer the strictness of law to prevail against conscience; as great a chancellor as he was, he would make use of all the niceties and subtilties in law, when it tended to support right and equity.”[17]
Such is Equity, and such are the principles which preside in its courts. No strictness of law can prevail against conscience. The niceties and subtilties of law are all to be used in support of right and equity. These noble and authoritative rules are a pathway of light. Against all strictness of law conscience must prevail. If there are niceties and subtilties in the law, let them all be employed on the side of right and equity. That is according to reason and the harmonies of the Universe. It is Equity.
Am I not right, when I now insist that Congress is a High Court of Equity with Georgia at its bar? It only remains that it should apply the principles of Equity, especially supplying deficiencies in the existing law, enjoining against threatened wrong, and seeing that justice is done,--all technicalities to the contrary notwithstanding. Against all strictness of law conscience must prevail; and if there are niceties and subtilties in the law, they must all minister to the completion of Reconstruction. To this end, the process of Congress must go forth in such form as will best establish peace and security in that State under the safeguard of equal laws. With the execution of this process Georgia will be a republican government in reality as in name.
The assertion of this power is necessary now, not merely for Georgia, where it will bring peace and security, but also for the Nation, which will be elevated in character and strengthened in that unity against which the Rebellion dashed itself in battle. An ancient sage has left in perpetual testimony, that the best government is where an injury to a single citizen is redressed as an injury to the whole nation. In harmony with the saying of the sage is the fundamental law that protection and allegiance are reciprocal, so that the Nation owes protection in exchange for the allegiance it receives. The duties of the Nation are correlative with the duties of the citizen. Are we a Nation? Surely we are not, if any State can without correction deny Equal Rights within its border, or in any way imperil the tranquillity of the Republic. There was a time when all this might be done with impunity,--when a State was permitted to exalt itself above the Nation,--when a State determined for itself the standard of Human Rights,--when there was one rule of citizenship at Boston and another at New Orleans, and as many different rules as there were States,--when State Rights were made the protection for all that a State chose to do, and the turtle, with its impenetrable shell, was the prototype of a political community constituting part of the Nation. But this time has passed. A State can no longer play the turtle; State Rights have ceased to be a protection for all that a State inclines to do; there can be but one rule of citizenship in all the States, being the same in Boston and New Orleans; no State can determine for itself the standard of Human Rights; no State can exalt itself above the Nation; nor can any State without correction deny Equal Rights within its borders, or in any way imperil the tranquillity of the Republic. The judgments of courts, the arguments of Senators, with all possible learning and all possible skill, are impotent against that prevailing law which places the National Unity and the Equal Rights of All beneath the safeguard of the Nation. There they will remain from this time forevermore, making the Republic more than ever an example to mankind.