“For them I made supreme, And on this city, _with an equal right_ _For all to vote_, its freedom have bestowed.”[194]
Here, at last, among us all this will be assured, and the Republic will be of such renown and virtue that all at home or abroad who bear the American name may exclaim with more than Roman pride, “I am an American citizen!”--and if danger approaches, they may repeat the same cry with more than Roman confidence, knowing well that this title will be a sufficient protection. Then will be renewed the story of the two sticks in the prophecy of Ezekiel: “Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand.”[195]
Sir, it is for you now to determine if all this shall be fulfilled. The whole case is before you in its grandeur and its humanity, infinite as human aspiration, beautiful as the vision of a republic. Turn not away from it. Vindicate the great cause, I entreat you, by the suppression of all oligarchical pretensions, and the establishment of those equal rights without which republican government is a name, and nothing more. Strike at the Black Code, as you have already struck at the Slave Code. There is little to choose between them. Strike at once; strike hard. You have already proclaimed Emancipation; proclaim Enfranchisement also. Nor longer stultify yourselves by setting at nought the practical principle of the Fathers, that all just government stands only on the consent of the governed, and its inseparable corollary, that _taxation without representation is tyranny_. What was once true is true forever, although we may for a time lose sight of it; and this is the case with those imperishable truths to which you have been, alas! so indifferent. Thus far the work is only _half done_. See that it is finished. Save the freedman from the outrage which is his daily life. As a slave he was “a tool without a soul.” If you have ceased to treat him according to this ancient definition, it is only because you treat him even as something less. In your cruel arithmetic he is only a “cipher,” without the protection which the slave sometimes found in the self-interest of the master; or rather let me say he is only a “cipher” where rights are concerned, but a numeral counted by millions where taxes are to be paid. Not only is the freedman compelled to pay, he must fight also, and he must obey the laws,--three things he cannot escape. But, according to the primal principle of republican government, he has an indefeasible right to a voice in determining how to be taxed, when to fight, and what laws to obey,--all of which can be secured only through the ballot. Thus again do I bring you to the same conclusion, confronting us at every point and at every stage, as a commandment not to be disobeyed.