A timely piece:
CONOR FRIEDERSDORF notes:
“An American can
always benefit from rereading the Declaration of Independence. But I suspect
that this Fourth of July is better spent with that document’s best interpreter,
Abraham Lincoln, beginning with words he uttered after worrying that his
countrymen were losing touch with the core ideals of their political
inheritance.
“Now, my countrymen, if you have been taught doctrines in conflict with
the great landmarks of the Declaration of Independence,” he declared in 1858,
“if you have listened to suggestions which would take away from its grandeur
and 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….
This was their majestic interpretation of the economy of the Universe.
This was their lofty, and wise, and noble understanding of the justice of the
Creator to His creatures.
Yes, gentlemen, to all His
creatures, to the whole great family of man. In their enlightened belief,
nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to
be trodden on, and degraded, and imbruted by its fellows.””