This is "the home of freedom," and "the asylum of the
oppressed;" our population is yet sparse, our public
domain yet wide; we are the greatest of food producers,
yet even here there are beggars, tramps, paupers, men
torn by anxiety for the support of their families, women
who know not which way to turn, little children growing
up in such poverty and squalor that only a miracle can
keep them pure. "Always with you," even here. What is the
week or the day of the week that our papers do not tell
of man or woman who, to escape the tortures of want, has
stepped out of life unbidden? What is this but famine?
...
We have here abolished all hereditary privileges and
legal distinctions of class. Monarchy, aristocracy,
prelacy, we have swept them all away. We have carried
mere political democracy to its ultimate. Every child
born in the United States may aspire to be President.
Every man, even though he be a tramp or a pauper, has a
vote, and one man's vote counts for as much as any other
man's vote. Before the law all citizens are absolutely
equal. In the name of the people all laws run. They are
the source of all power, the fountain of all honor. In
their name and by their will all government is carried
on; the highest officials are but their servants.
Primogeniture and entail we have abolished wherever they
existed. We have and have had free trade in land. We
started with something infinitely better than any scheme
of peasant proprietorship which it is possible to carry
into effect in Great Britain. We have had for our public
domain the best part of an immense continent. We have had
the preemption law and the homestead law. It has been our
boast that here every one who wished it could have a
farm. We have had full liberty of speech and of the
press. We have not merely common schools, but high
schools and universities, open to all who may choose to
attend. Yet here the same social difficulties apparent on
the other side of the Atlantic are beginning to appear.
It is already clear that our democracy is a vain
pretense, our make-believe of equality a sham and a
fraud. ... read
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