tion of Independence, has been assailed, and this Great Charter of our country discredited. Sir, you and I will soon pass away, but that will continue to stand, above impeachment or question. The Declaration of Independence was a Declaration of Rights, and the language employed, though general in its character, must obviously be restrained within the design and sphere of a Declaration of Rights, involving no such absurdity as was attributed to it yesterday by the Senator from Indiana [Mr. Pettit]. Sir, it is a palpable fact that men are not born equal in physical strength or in mental capacities, in beauty of form or health of body. These mortal cloaks of flesh differ, as do these worldly garments. Diversity or inequality, in these respects, is the law of creation. But, as God is no respecter of persons, and as all are equal in his sight, whether Dives or Lazarus, master or slave, so are all equal in natural inborn rights; and, pardon me, if I say, it is a vain sophism to adduce in argument against this vital axiom of Liberty, the physical or mental inequalities by which men are characterized, or the unhappy degradation to which, in violation of a common brotherhood, they are doomed. To deny the Declaration of Independence is to rush on the bosses of the shield of the Almighty, which, in all respects, the supporters of this measure seem to do.
To the delusive suggestion of the Senator from North Carolina, [Mr. Badger,] that by the overthrow
