Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 11 (of 20)Sumner, Charles
History
Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 11 (of 20)
Sumner, Charles
Slavery -- United States; Speeches, addresses, etc., American
Meanwhile this expression passed from France into the Constitutions
of other countries: of Holland, in 1801, where the declaration was,
“All members of society are equal before the law, without distinction
of rank or birth”;[305] of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, created by
Napoleon in 1807, where we meet these terms: “Slavery is abolished;
all citizens are equal before the law”;[306] of the Canton of Zug,
in Switzerland, in 1814, where, among “General Principles,” is the
article, “All the citizens of the Canton are equal before the law,
and there are no subjects in the Canton of Zug”;[307] of Bavaria, in
1818, where “equality of the rights of the citizens before the law”
is enumerated in the preamble among “the principal features of the
Constitution”;[308] of Bolivia, in South America, where in 1825 we meet
the words, “All citizens are equal before the law”;[309] of Portugal,
in 1826, where it is declared, “The law is equal for all, whether it
protects, whether it punishes”;[310] of Brazil, where in the same year
was a similar declaration;[311] and then of Greece, not only in the
Provisional Constitution of 1822, but in the permanent Constitution
of 1827, when the Greek nation “proclaims before God and before man
its political existence and its independence,” and then among its
fundamental principles declares, “All Greeks are equal before the
law.”[312]
The French Revolution of 1830 quickened this statement anew. Belgium
adopted it in 1831,[313] and even Austria in 1849; the latter power as
follows: “All subjects are equal before the law, and judged according
to the same fundamental rights”;[314] and Sardinia, in 1848, as
follows: “All natives of the kingdom, whatever their titles or their
rank, are equal before the law.”[315] The same words reappear in the
Fundamental Statute of Italy, in 1861, when that classical land became
a nation.[316]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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