“Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, the document that articulated the principle of human rights endowed by the Creator, thereby ultimately ensuring the end of slavery, and led to the establishment of the country that has served as the beacon of hope for people of every race and ethnicity. More black Africans have voluntarily emigrated to the United States to seek liberty and opportunity than came to America as slaves.”

2010s, 2016

The Need for Transcendence in the Postmodern World (1994)

2000s, Bush's Lincolnian Challenge (2002)

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

Popular Government: Its Essence, Its Permanence and Its Perils, chapter 4, p.90 (1913).

2000s, Bush's Lincolnian Challenge (2002)

1962, Address at Independence Hall

As quoted in His Brother's Blood: Speeches and Writings, 1838–64 https://books.google.com/books?id=qMEv8DNXVbIC&pg=PA193&lpg=PA199 (2004), edited by William Frederick Moore and Jane Ann Moore, p. 199
1860s, Speech to the U.S. House of Representatives (April 1860)

2000s, God Bless America (2008), Slavery and the Human Story
Context: But one may ask, how is it that slavery, or any other form of invidious discrimination, has played so great a role in American history? How could a nation, dedicated at its birth to the proposition that all men are created equal, have tolerated slavery and its effects so long? If we look to the long history of mankind, however, we will ask a different question. Slavery was lawful in every one of the original thirteen states. There was accordingly nothing remarkable in the fact that slavery was not abolished immediately on independence. What is remarkable is that a slave-owning nation would declare that all men are created equal, and thereby make the abolition of slavery a moral and political necessity. To accomplish that task would not be easy. We need to see the dimensions of that task to appreciate its difficulty.