1776

'On the 1776 Commission' from Notes & Comments in The New Criterion.

"It should go without saying that the equality of which the Declaration [of Independence] spoke is moral equality before the law, not an equality of talent or other natural endowments. ... Nevertheless, despite the self-evidence of that great truth, the Declaration has accumulated barnacles of cynicism, not least from those who eagerly point out that many of the Founders, including the principal author of the Declaration, Thomas Jefferson, were slaveholders. Does that not render their high-flown rhetoric disingenuous, not to say hypocritical?

"No, it doesn’t, and the report patiently explains why. We won’t rehearse those arguments here. They are familiar to anyone who has bothered to look into the question. The real issue was articulated by Lincoln:

'All honor to Jefferson—to the man who ... had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times ... that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression.'

"Lincoln’s point is this: There have been plenty of revolutionary manifestos throughout history. What makes the Declaration of Independence special is that it is not simply an affidavit of separation but also an affirmation of a central moral truth, a truth that is universal—'applicable to all men and all times'—as well as prophylactic: a people that embraces the principles of the Declaration has a potent guard against 're-appearing tyranny and oppression.'"

See the Declaration of Independence in Gateway to the Great Books (10 Vol., 1963) volume 6, and in Great Books of the Western World (first edition, 52 Vol., 1952) volume 43, (second edition, 60 Vol., 1990) volume 40.

See also,
Abraham Lincoln, Letter to Henry L. Pierce and others, April 6, 1859, Abraham Lincoln Online;
The 1776 Report, The President’s Advisory 1776 Commission;
AHA Condemns Report of the Advisory 1776 Commission, American Historical Association