Words mean what words mean.
This seems relevant.
"On every question of construction, let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."
— Thomas Jefferson-
I urge you not to be intellectually dishonest. Accept what is meant by it, not what has been invented for it after the fact. The Declaration of Independence was not intended to address the issue of slavery, and to assert that it was is being intellectually dishonest. It may comfort you to believe such a thing, but it is the opposite of the truth.
Let us insist on the truth.