“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal.”
First Woman's Rights Convention, Seneca Falls, New York, [July, 19-20, 1848]. Declaration of Sentiments.
“If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,' and then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration, and so they are. That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world.”
1850s, Speech at Chicago (1858)
Context: There is something else connected with it. We have besides these men — descended by blood from our ancestors — among us perhaps half our people who are not descendants at all of these men, they are men who have come from Europe — German, Irish, French and Scandinavian — men that have come from Europe themselves, or whose ancestors have come hither and settled here, finding themselves our equals in all things. If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,' and then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration, and so they are. That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world.
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Abraham Lincoln 618
16th President of the United States 1809–1865Related quotes
Harry V. Jaffa
(1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor
Source: 2000s, A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War (2000), p. 231
Context: South Carolina cites, loosely, but with substantial accuracy, some of the language of the original Declaration. That Declaration does say that it is the right of the people to abolish any form of government that becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established. But South Carolina does not repeat the preceding language in the earlier document: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal'.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident that all P-brains are created equal.”
The Universe in a Nutshell (2001)
John Quincy Adams
(1767–1848) American politician, 6th president of the United States (in office from 1825 to 1829)
As quoted in letter to the citizens of the twelfth congressional district (29 June 1839), The Hingham Patriot, MA. As quoted in Thomas Huges Rare and Early Newspaper catalog, No. 141
Letter to the 12th Congressional District (1839)
Martin Luther King, Jr.
(1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
1950s, Conquering Self-centeredness (1957)
Joe Biden
(1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)
2020, March 2020
Barack Obama
(1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2016, DNC Address (July 2016)
Context: America is already great. America is already strong. And I promise you, our strength, our greatness, does not depend on Donald Trump. In fact, it doesn’t depend on any one person. And that, in the end, may be the biggest difference in this election — the meaning of our democracy.
Ronald Reagan called America “a shining city on a hill.” Donald Trump calls it “a divided crime scene” that only he can fix. It doesn’t matter to him that illegal immigration and the crime rate are as low as they’ve been in decades — (applause) — because he’s not actually offering any real solutions to those issues. He’s just offering slogans, and he’s offering fear. He’s betting that if he scares enough people, he might score just enough votes to win this election.
And that's another bet that Donald Trump will lose. And the reason he'll lose it is because he’s selling the American people short. We're not a fragile people. We're not a frightful people. Our power doesn’t come from some self-declared savior promising that he alone can restore order as long as we do things his way. We don’t look to be ruled. Our power comes from those immortal declarations first put to paper right here in Philadelphia all those years ago: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that We the People, can form a more perfect union.
That's who we are. That’s our birthright — the capacity to shape our own destiny.
Robert G. Ingersoll
(1833–1899) Union United States Army officer
Preface to Helen Hamilton Gardner, Men, Women and Gods (1885)
