Thomas Wentworth Higginson, The new world and the new book

Now that the human race has reached some degree of maturity and self-respect, there is no dignity in any tribunal of authority except that which a self-governing nation has created for itself. Such deference, and such alone, is manly. To find such deference at its highest point, we must look for it in that entertained by the American people for its own higher courts—courts which it has created, and could at any period with a little delay abolish, but which it recognizes meanwhile as supreme authority. This same sentiment has never in our day been brought to a test so difficult and a result so triumphant as in 1876, when President Hayes was declared Chief Magistrate. Nearly one-half of the American voters honestly believed at that time that they had been defrauded of their rights; but the decision was made by a court expressly constituted for the purpose, and when made, the decree was selfexecuting, not a soldier being ordered out in its support. It is hard to imagine, and perhaps not desirable to see, a respect for authority more complete than this; for even such respect may be too excessive—as many of us discovered