Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
All men are by nature equally free and independent. Such equality is necessary in order to create a free government. All men must be equal to each other in natural law. Jefferson also may have been influenced by Thomas Paine's Common Sense, which was published in early 1776: Benjamin Franklin by Joseph Duplessis, 1778. He is credited with ...
The first and second article of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, written by George Mason and adopted unanimously by the Virginia Convention of Delegates on June 12, 1776, speaks of happiness in the context of recognizably Lockean rights and is paradigmatic of the way in which "the fundamental natural rights of mankind" were expressed at the ...
They did not mean to say all men were equal in color, size, intellect, moral development, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness in what they did consider all men created equal—equal in "certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This they said, and this they meant.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights... In the 19th century, the movement to abolish slavery seized this passage as a statement of constitutional principle, although the U.S. constitution recognized and protected the institution of slavery.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering ...
Stephens' speech criticized the Founding Fathers, and Thomas Jefferson in particular, for their anti-slavery and Enlightenment views, accusing them of erroneously assuming that races are equal. [5] He declared that disagreements over the enslavement of black Americans were the "immediate cause" of secession and that the Confederate constitution ...
Get AOL Mail for FREE! Manage your email like never before with travel, photo & document views. Personalize your inbox with themes & tabs. You've Got Mail!