I notice that people often bring it up in efforts to claim the Declaration of Independence was intended to be some commentary on slavery, which it wasn't.
I quote the salient point of the document, and one which people cannot twist into meaning something it was never intended to mean, as they constantly do with that "all men are created equal" part.
Sure, I believe all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, but as it is used today, it is a distraction from the actual intent of the document, which is to argue that "people" have a right to to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them.
It bugs me when people try to make the Declaration of Independence about slavery. It wasn't. It was about independence and why the states had a right to have it.
“It bugs me when people try to make the Declaration of Independence about slavery. It wasn’t”
Have to agree with you. The primary author of that document owned over 600 slaves in his life time. He only freed 10 of them, 5 while alive, and 5 in his will after his death.
He certainly was not going to make an issue of slavery in such an important document as the “Declaration of Independence”
I was pointing out that the Founders didn’t create slavery.
Lincoln’s point was that slavery was already here. Is this something you are intending on disputing?
I’ve always taken that statement that “all men are created equal” to be one pointed at King George. The monarchy held(holds) that they have a right to rule by virtue of their birth. So “all men are created equal” means that the king wasn’t created to lord over them. The idea that all men are otherwise created equal is patently absurd.