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Mr. Jefferson wrote that all men are created equal. He wrote it while owning slaves, which is a moral complexity he understood and others have understood for him since. What matters is that he wrote it β that he inscribed it at the founding, that it became the standard by which the nation would be judged. I hold the Confederacy to that standard. They have repudiated it. I have not.
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 and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
β Declaration of Independence (4 July 1776)β Speech on the Dred Scott Decision, Springfield, IL, 26 June 1857; Gettysburg Address (1863)
19th Century