The
accepted economical theories of the period were to a large extent
corollaries of the fundamental proposition, and differing material and
social conditions. Beyond all this, and coming still under the head of
individual theories, was the doctrine enunciated by Thomas Jefferson in
the Declaration of Independence,--the doctrine that all men were created
equal,--meaning, of course, equal before the law. But the theorist and
humanitarian of the North, accepting the fundamental principle laid down
in the Declaration, gave to it a far wider application than had been
intended by its authors,--a breadth of application it would not bear.
Such science as he had being of scriptural origin, he interpreted the
word "equal" as signifying equal in the possibilities of their
attributes,--physical, moral, intellectual; and in so doing, he of
course ignored the first principles of ethnology. It was, I now realize,
a somewhat wild-eyed school of philosophy, that of which I myself was a
youthful disciple.
But, on the other hand, beside these, between 1850 and 1860 a class of
trained and more cautious thinkers, observers, scientists and
theologians was coming to the front. Their investigations, though we did
not then foresee it, were a generation later destined gently to subvert
the accepted fundamentals of religious and economical thought, literary
performance, and material existence.
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