No formula whose effect on public opinion is not binding and healing and unifying has any substantial claim to consideration as the essential and formative democratic idea.
Belief in the principle of equal rights does not bind, heal, and unify public opinion.

Its effect rather is confusing, distracting, and at worst, disintegrating.

A democratic political organization has no immunity from grievances.

They are a necessary result of a complicated and changing industrial and social organism.

What is good for one generation will often be followed by consequences that spell deprivation for the next.