[81] He pays a touching tribute to Jean Jacques Rousseau —that solitary person, poor, of humble extraction, born in Switzerland, of irregular education and life, enjoying a temporary home in France, a man of audacious genius, who set at naught the received opinions of mankind!
His earliest appearance before the public was by an eccentric Essay on the Origin of Inequality among Men, in which he sustained the irrational paradox, that men are happier in a state of nature than under the laws of civilization. This was followed by a later work, the Social Contract. In both of these productions, the sentiment of Equality was invoked against many of the abuses of society, and language was employed going far beyond Equality in Civil and Political Rights. The conspicuous position, since awarded to the speculations of Rousseau, and the influence they have exerted in diffusing this sentiment, make it proper to refer to them on this occasion; but the absence of precision in his propositions renders him an uncertain guide.He next seizes hold of the French Revolution, which he finely calls ‘that great movement for enfranchisement;’ it was the expression of this same sentiment. There it received a distinct and authoritative annunciation; for, in the successive Constitutions adopted amidst the throes of those bloody struggles, the Equality of men was always proclaimed. In this sweeping wave went away Nobles, and Kings, and all distinctions of birth—they could not withstand so mighty and triumphant a truth.
The Constitution of 1791 declares in its first article as follows: ‘Men are born and continue free and equal in their rights.’ In its sixth article it says: ‘The law is the expression of the general will. It ought to be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens being equal in its eyes, are equally admissible to all dignities, places, and public employments according to their capacity, and without other distinction than their virtues and talents.’ At the close of the Declaration of Rights there is this further explanation of it: ‘The National Assembly, ’
