Lincoln’s Majestic Declaration of Independence

Argue until your brain explodes about the context of Founding Fathers’ Declaration of Independence, but Lincoln clearly saw it as “a rebuke & a stumbling block to tyranny & oppression” everywhere & forever more. In Williamsburg, Va this 4th, I’m excited to take in “Thomas Jefferson’s” reading of this revolutionary document that was largely forgotten about until Abraham Lincoln brought it front & center again. Speaking in Lewiston, Illinois in the summer of 1858 & as part of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, the future Great Emancipator reminded his countrymen of this manifesto’s true essence for which hundreds of thousands would soon die:

“My countrymen, if you have been taught doctrines [that] conflict with the great landmarks of the Declaration of Independence; if you have listened to suggestions which would take away from its grandeur & mutilate the fair symmetry of its proportions; if you have been inclined to believe that all men are not created equal in those inalienable rights enumerated in our charter of liberty, let me entreat you to come back. Return to the fountain whose waters spring close by the blood of the revolution:

‘… We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness …’ “This was their majestic interpretation of the economy of the Universe. This was their lofty, wise & noble understanding of the justice of the Creator to His creatures. Yes, to all His creatures, to the whole great family of man. In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the Divine image & likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on, & degraded, & imbruted by its fellows. They grasped not only the whole race of man then living, but they reached forward & seized upon the farthest posterity. They erected a beacon to guide their children & their children’s children, & the countless myriads who should inhabit the earth in other ages …”

Davd Soul