Democracy: Our Responsibility

If Jefferson owned slaves all his life, how is it that a memorial statue of him has been erected in the capitol of our country? If "all men are created equal," as he wrote in our American Declaration of Independence, how is it that he did not grant equality to the black people under his control?

Overall there is no denying that Jefferson's efforts and life's work have decidedly improved the condition of all people everywhere, specifically including Afro-Americans. Lincoln, for example, expanded Jefferson's principle to justify equal rights for all, a direct result of which was freedom for slaves.

Prior to our Revolution representatives of the southern slave holding colonies were being asked to sign the Declaration of Independence, which said that, "All men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." There was simply no way to inject the very specific concept of equal rights for all into that document at that time. Southerners would have refused to sign the Declaration and unity among the colonies would never been achieved.

Nevertheless, the Declaration of Independence was used to justify freedom for slaves in America. Some eighty-two years after the signing of the Declaration, Lincoln began referring to it, not only because he was opposed to the extension of slavery into free territory, but because he believed in the freedom of all people everywhere, regardless of their race, creed, or station in life.

When Lincoln interpreted the phrase "all men are created equal" to mean that all persons are entitled to equal rights, he went further than Jefferson and the founding fathers actually did. He put a different meaning on that phrase than they did. Equal rights for all then became the foundational principle of our democratic political philosophy and of the democratic world movement as well. Was that the most important accomplishment of Lincoln's life?

Lincoln could see that in the Declaration Jefferson was addressing the whole world. "Jefferson's principle" as Lincoln always called it, "is applicable to all men and all times," and "the Declaration contemplated the progressive improvement in the condition of all men everywhere."

Lincoln understood very well the connection between his interpretation of Jefferson's principle and the Civil War. The one inevitably led to the other because his interpretation had to be carried forward or abandoned. There was no middle ground. But because our Declaration was world oriented we were committed from the outset to carry forward its principle throughout the entire world.

Introducing the principle of equal rights for all into the mainstream of human history was no small task. The responsibility for moving that principle forward against all contrary principles and opposing forces is the most important responsibility in all of human history. And yet that is why we were brought into being as a people and as a nation. That is our national purpose. We were given that responsibility.

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