Wednesday, November 2, 2005

From an 1840 report to the Massachusetts legislature advising the repeal of the state's anti-miscegenation law:

[Your Committee] are well aware of the strength of the social prejudice in which this law took its origin, and still finds its support; but they have yet to learn that this Legislature will deliberately, and after full examination, sanction the principle that the tastes of the majority shall be the measure of the rights of the minority...

It is enough for those who hold such a belief, that the vigorous spirit of constitutional liberty, disdains to interdict the full expression and dissemination of their opinions; but it is too much for them to ask that their hatred, or fear, or disgust at their fellow men, should be carried out in legislation, and enforced by penal enactments.


Democracy is not the rule of the majority. It's the rule of the majority while protecting the rights of the minority. Why is this such a difficult concept for some people?

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