Living the Declaration

How have Americans intepreted the Declaration thoughout our history, and how do we engage with it today?

Here are some examples:

• Lemuel Haynes' Sermon Condemning Slavery (1776)

  • Lemuel Haynes is thought to be the first ordained Black American minister in the United States. He delivered this anti-slavery sermon in 1776, drawing upon the natural-rights logic of the recently pronounced Declaration of Independence to link America’s call for freedom with the call to end slavery.

• John C. Calhoun on the Declaration's "Created Equal" (1848)

  • Senator and former Vice President John C. Calhoun argued against the antislavery principles of the Oregon Bill, claiming that individual states had the right to reject federal policies that they deemed unconstitutional. This speech absolutely rejects the claim of the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal.

• Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments (1848)

  • Drawing upon the Declaration of Independence, this document began with the bold assertion that “all men and women are created equal,” reframing the struggle for women’s rights as part of the ongoing effort to fulfill America’s founding promise. It was signed and shared at the Seneca Falls Convention, marking the formal beginning of the organized women’s-rights movement in America.

• Abraham Lincoln's "Electric Cord" Speech (1858)

  • Speaking as Independence Day celebrations were underway, Abraham Lincoln sets out his view of what defined an American, based on the principles of the Declaration of Independence. This definition continues to be under debate today.

• Lincoln–Douglas Ottawa Debate (1858)

  • The Lincoln–Douglas Debates were a series of seven public debates between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican challenger, and Senator Stephen A. Douglas, the Democratic incumbent in the campaign for a U.S. Senate seat from Illinois. The central issue of this debate was the expansion of slavery in the western territories. Douglas argued for popular sovereignty, while Lincoln argued that slavery was a moral wrong and fundamentally inconsistent with the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence.

• The Gettysburg Address (1863)

  • In less than three minutes, Lincoln delivered this address at the dedication of a new national cemetery for Union and Confederate soldiers. In that time, he reshaped how Americans understood the Civil War and the nation itself—as a test of whether a nation founded on liberty and equality could endure. He honored the soldiers who had given “the last full measure of devotion,” urging the living to complete the Founders’ unfinished work of making the nation’s ideals a reality.

• Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)

  • After being arrested for leading nonviolent demonstrations against racial segregation in Birmingham, Alabama, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. wrote this open letter, combining moral reasoning, biblical references, and historical examples to show that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. He calls upon all people to live up the founding promise of the Declaration of Independence, that “all men are created equal,” regardless of race.