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America’s First Constitutions and Declarations of Rights
member too that at the time the Declaration was put forth every one of
the thirteen colonies were slaveholding colonies; every man who signed
that Declaration represented slaveholding constituents.’’
Lincoln did not deny these facts. But he insisted nevertheless that all
of the slaveholding communities ‘‘greatly deplored the evil.’’ This is why
‘‘they placed a provision in the Constitution which they supposed would
gradually remove the disease by cutting off its source. This was the abolition of the slave trade.’’ Thus, said Lincoln, it may be asked: ‘‘if slavery
had been a good thing, would the Fathers of the Republic have taken a
step calculated to diminish its beneficent influences among themselves?’’
The Declaration, he contended, stands for the principle of equal justice,
and if exceptions are made, ‘‘where will it stop?’’ It was meant by the
Founders to serve as ‘‘a beacon to guide their children and their children’s children’’ in the interminable struggle against special interests and
privilege, in the hope that ‘‘their posterity might look up again to the
Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which
their fathers began—so that truth, and justice, and mercy, and all the humane and Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the land.’’ In
large measure, the commitment to equality that Lincoln found in the
Declaration of Independence was essentially a moral equality, or the
Christian doctrine that everyone is equal in the eyes of God. Lincoln’s interpretation prevailed, and it was the preamble of the Declaration of Independence which elected him to the presidency and produced the Thirteenth Amendment.
In 17