“When the decision was finally made to accept blacks as full citizens, the founders' principles provided the theoretical foundation. Lincoln's revival of the declaration in the 1850s had prepared the way. In principle, people of all races can become citizens of a nation based on the idea that "all men are created equal."”
Source: 2000s, Vindicating the Founders (2001), p. 28
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Thomas G. West 6
American academic 1945Related quotes

2000s, Is Diversity Good? (2003)
Context: To allow slavery to be introduced into free territories, where it had not hitherto existed, was, Abraham Lincoln held, a very bad thing. His opponent, Stephen A. Douglas, held that it was a sacred right, belonging to the people of each territory, to decide for themselves whether or not to have slavery among their domestic institutions. According to Douglas, Lincoln wanted to destroy the diversity upon which the union had subsisted, by insisting that all the states ought to be free. But for Douglas himself, the principle of 'popular sovereignty' did not admit of exceptions. There was to be no diversity, no deviation from the right of the people to decide. For Lincoln the wrongness of slavery meant that no one, and no people, had the right to decide in its favor. For Lincoln, the principle of human equality, "that all men are created equal", did not admit exceptions.

Address to the Constituent Assembly (1947)
Context: You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed — that has nothing to do with the business of the State. As you know, history shows that in England, conditions, some time ago, were much worse than those prevailing in India today. The Roman Catholics and the Protestants persecuted each other. Even now there are some States in existence where there are discriminations made and bars imposed against a particular class. Thank God, we are not starting in those days. We are starting in the days where there is no discrimination, no distinction between one community and another, no discrimination between one caste or creed and another. We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one State.

2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), Q&A
Context: It was a terrible war. The idea that the cost of the war is due to Lincoln is simply absurd. It was a terrible war because the country was deeply divided, and the question of the future of the nation, whether or not it would be based upon principles recognized as principles of individual liberty, or whether the idea of one race dominating another race would be accepted as a means for governance. Let me just read one short statement here that might interest you. "Since the Civil War, in which the Southern States were conquered, against all historical logic and sound sense, the American people have been in a condition of political and popular decay.... The beginnings of a great new social order based on the principle of slavery and inequality were destroyed by that war, and with them also the embryo of a future truly great America." That has been the position of defenders of the Confederacy from Alexander Stephens through Thomas DiLorenzo. Do you know the man who said that was Adolf Hitler?

Radio and television report to the American people on civil rights (11 June 1963)]
1963, Civil Rights Address

2000s, God Bless America (2008)
About the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, NIF CEO: Israel’s “Nation-State Bill” Is Tribalism At Its Worst; Completely Incompatible with Human Dignity and Equality https://www.nif.org/news-media/press-releases/nif-ceo-israels-nation-state-bill-is-tribalism-at-its-worst-completely-incompatible-with-human-dignity-and-equality/ (10 July 2018), New Israel Fund.

Those are undeniable truths.
Vietnamese Proclamation of Independence (2 September 1945), Ho Chi Minh, Selected Works (1960-1962), Vol. 3, pp. 17-21