Freedom! Equality!! Justice!!‪!‬

Standing upon the apex of the nineteenth century, we look backward through the historic era, and in the distant, dim past catch sight of the feeble outreachings of the roots of humanity, which during thousands of years have evolved into the magnificent civilization by which we are surrounded. Mighty nations have risen and fallen; empires have gathered and wasted; races and peoples have evolved and decayed; but the mystic ebb and flow of the Gigantic Spirit concealed within the universe has continued upon its course, ever increasing in strength and in variety of sequence.

It is true that the results which have flown from this progressive course have very materially changed. Early in its history every achievement was considered great or small, as its conquests by military prowess were great or small. But who in this era would think of placing a Sesostris, or a Semiramis, or even an Alexander, or Cæsar, in comparison as conquerors, with the steamship, the locomotive engine, the electric telegraph, and last and greatest, collecting the efforts of all men, and spreading them world-wide—the printing-press. Where kings and emperors once used the sword to hew their way into the centers of barbarism, the people now make use of their subtle powers of intellect to pierce the heart of ignorance. The conquerors of the present, armed with these keen weapons, are so intertwining the material interests of humanity that, where exclusion was once the rule among nations, intercommunication has made it the exception. Every year some new tie has been added to those which already bound the nations together, until even the continents clasp hands across the oceans, and salute each other in fraternal unity, and the islands stand anxiously waiting for their deliverance.

The grand results of all these magnificent changes have accrued to the benefit of nations as such. All the revolutions of the past have resulted in the building of empires and the dethroning of kings. The grandeur of the Roman Empire consisted in its power, centered in and expressed by its rulers. The glory of France under the great Napoleon was the result of his capacity to use the people. We have no histories making nations famous by the greatness of their peoples. Centralization of power at the head of the government has been the source of all national honor. Under this system grades and castes of people have built themselves, the stronger upon the weaker, and the people as individuals have never appeared upon the surface.

Government has gone through various and important evolutions and changes. First we learn of it as residing in the head of the family, there being no other organization. Next, families aggregated into tribes, with an acknowledged head. Again, tribes united into nations, occupying specified limits, and having an absolute ruler. Then began a double process, which is even now unfinished—the consolidation of nations into races, and the redistribution of power to the people. That which was once absolute in the head of the family, the tribe and the nation, is now shared by the head with the most powerful among the people. These two processes will continue until both are complete—until all nations are merged into races, and all races into one government; and until the power is completely and equally returned to all the people, who will no longer be denominated as belonging to this or that country or government, but as citizens of the world—as members of a common humanity.