The American Principle of Equality in the Declaration

Liberty Displaying the Arts and Sciences, or The Genius of America Encouraging the Emancipation of the Blacks by Samuel Jennings, 1792, Library Company of Philadelphia.

Introduction

One important principle that the American Founders recognized in the Declaration of Independence of 1776 when they formed the United States was the equality of man.  Equality is a state of being equal or the same.  Though differing in their abilities and traits, the Founders saw, men are equal in the eyes of God.[1]  The idea of man’s equality was largely influenced by the Bible and a God-oriented, Western worldview—as developed in the ancient, medieval, Reformation, modern Enlightenment, and early American periods.  With this view, the Founders asserted in the Declaration, “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, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  They also declared Americans’ right “to assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God entitle them.”[2]  The Founders greatly valued the idea of man’s equality because it was the philosophical basis for man’s natural rights of life and liberty and for government by consent.  Indeed, it was a guiding lamp for America’s government based on popular sovereignty or the people’s rule.  To be sure, the institution and practice of slavery that existed in early America from the 1600s to 1800s did not reflect the American ideal of equality as espoused in the Declaration.  Its violations of equality and rights became a moral problem that culminated in the American Civil War, as will be discussed later.  The Declaration’s principle of equality, however, ultimately led to equal rights and protections for all future Americans.

The Bible and God-oriented Western thought in many ways shaped the Founders’ understanding of man’s equality by revealing that all men are equal before God in distinct ways.  More specifically, the Bible reveals that man is equal in common origin, nature, dominion, moral condition, and moral responsibility.  On man’s common origin, Genesis 2:7, 21-22 teaches that God created mankind from one man, the first man, Adam:  “The Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.  …  Then the Lord made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man.”[3]  The disciple Luke confirms in Acts 17:26, “He [God] has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth.”[4]  On man’s common nature and dominion, Genesis 1:26-28 says that God made man, unlike other creatures, in His image, and so man has a unique dignity and dominion on earth:  “‘Let us [God] make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule…over all the creatures.’”  On man’s common moral condition, Genesis 3 reveals man’s sinful state through the Fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  The Apostle Paul in Romans 3:23 confirms man’s sinful condition, saying that “all fall short of the glory of God.”  On man’s common moral responsibility, God consequently gave man a moral sense or law of good and evil as shown in Genesis 3:22:  “God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.’”  In Genesis 4:7, God instructs man to “do what is right” and avoid sin or, as Psalm 34:14 says, to “turn from evil and do good.”  Paul in Romans 2:14-15 confirms the moral law for mankind which is “written on their hearts.”  Founding-era Americans understood from these teachings how men are equal in God’s eyes, and they drew from them to support their view that men in civil society are equal under law and in rights.  Though other sources contributed to the American view of equality, this essay focuses primarily on the influence of the Bible and God-oriented Western thought on this principle.

The Ancient Israelites and Greco-Romans:  Man’s Common Moral Responsibility

The ancient Israelites from 1800s-100s BC and the ancient Greco-Romans from 700s BC-400s AD laid important groundwork for the Western idea of equality among men.  In particular, they believed that their people shared a common moral responsibility in being subject to moral law.

The ancient Israelites understood man’s common moral responsibility from the Hebrew Scriptures—the Old Testament of the Bible—authored between the fifteenth and first centuries BC.  The Israelites believed from Genesis 3 and 4 that all men are subject to God’s moral law.  They further saw from the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy that all their people were also subject to certain God-given religious, ceremonial, and civil laws.  These laws applied to everyone.  In Deuteronomy 1:17, the prophet Moses tells the people, “You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small as well as the great.”  With such beliefs about man’s common moral responsibility, the Israelites practiced Rule of Law in which all the people were subject to and treated equally under the same law.

The Greco-Romans understood man’s common moral responsibility apparently from nature and reason.  The Greeks believed, as philosopher Aristotle expressed in his 300s BC Treatise on Rhetoric, that all men have a “universal sense of right and wrong.”[5]  The Romans likewise believed, as statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero conveyed in his c50 BC Treatise on the Laws, that all men are subject to a moral law which they called the “Law of Nature” or “right reason” and recognized as “the common property of God and man.”[6]  The c170-228 AD Roman jurist Ulpian notably stated that “as far as concerns the natural law all men are equal.[7]  Applying this belief to civil law, the Roman’s first body of written laws for their Republic in 451 BC—the Twelve Tables—gave the same laws for all citizens regardless of class.  It stated that “laws of personal exception shall not be proposed.”[8]  Ultimately, the Roman concept of equality under law, including Ulpian’s statement on natural law, reappeared in Byzantine Roman Emperor Justinian I’s 529-565 AD Corpus Juris Civilis or Body of Civil Laws which became the basis of Roman law in the Christianized Eastern Roman Empire and in medieval Western Europe.[9]

The ancient Israelites and Greco-Romans recognized an equality among men in their common moral sense of and responsibility to a moral law—to a degree not often seen in other parts of the world at that time—based on the Bible, nature, and reason.  In accordance with these views, the Greco-Romans asserted that citizens—though differing in abilities and occupations—were equal under civil law and in rights including liberty.[10]  The Greeks, as Aristotle stated in his 350 BC Politics, held that “the rights and liberties of the many, are duly respected and impartially maintained.”[11]  The Romans, as Cicero affirmed in his 54-51 BC Commonwealth, believed that though men’s fortunes and faculties are not the same, “rights at least should be equal, among those who are citizens of the same republic.”[12]  Ulpian thus stated that “by natural law all were born free.”[13]  These views and practices influenced the Western idea of man as differing in many ways but equal under law and in rights.  “The most important classical element of equality,” says Scott Robinson in his 2020 essay Equality, “was its insistence that we are equal members of a community, or equally human, even if not equal in every capacity.”[14]

Medieval Christian Thought:  Man’s Common Nature

The teachings of the Bible and Judeo-Christian thought which spread through Roman civilization in the late ancient and medieval eras strengthened the Western view of man’s equality.  The Bible-based writings of influential Christian figures including Augustine, Pope Gregory I, and Thomas Aquinas supported man’s equality, most notably, in recognizing man’s common nature in being created in God’s image, with reason.

North African Christian bishop and theologian Augustine of Hippo, who lived from 354 to 430 AD, adapted ancient Greco-Roman classical thought to Judeo-Christian teaching and helped to make the Bible and Christianity known and understood in the formerly pagan Roman empire.  In his 426 AD City of God and c400 AD Confessions, Augustine explained from Genesis 1:26-28 man’s “similarity of nature” in being made “in that very image and likeness of Thee [God] (that is, [with] the power of reason and understanding) on account of which he [man] was set over all irrational creatures.”[15]  He further pointed out that while men have dominion over other animals, they are equal among other men, saying that God “did not intend that his rational creatures, who were made in His image, should have dominion over anything but the irrational creation, –not man over man, but man over the beasts.”[16]

Pope Gregory I was an influential Christian Bishop of Rome from 590-604 AD who initiated missions to Christianize the Germanic peoples and Anglo-Saxons of Europe.  In his 578-595 AD Exposition on the Morals of Job or Commentary on Job, Gregory, reflecting Augustine, affirmed man’s common nature as expressed in Genesis 1:26-28 and confirmed in Genesis 9:1-2:

All of us men are equal by nature….  …  [O]ur old fathers [in the Bible] are recorded to have been not so much kings of men, as shepherds of flocks.  When the Lord said to Noah and his sons [in Gen 9:1-2], Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, He adds, And the fear and dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth.  He says not ‘be upon the men’….  Since man is by nature set over the irrational animals, but not over the rest of mankind, and therefore it is said to him that he should be feared by the beasts and not by men; because it is to swell with pride against nature, to desire to be feared by an equal.[17]

R. W. Carlyle and A. J. Carlyle noted in their 1903 History of Medieval Political Theory in the West that Gregory’s assertion here of man’s natural equality became well-known and was often cited in medieval literature.[18]

Italian churchman and theologian Thomas Aquinas of 1225-1274 AD was another important figure who influenced Western, Judeo-Christian thought in the Middle Ages and thereafter.  In his 1265-1274 AD Summa Theologica, Aquinas, like Augustine and Gregory, also upheld man’s common nature.  Aquinas similarly observed from Genesis 1:26-28 that “man is said to be after the image of God…according to his intelligence and reason” and thus “excels all animals.”[19]  Echoing Gregory, Aquinas asserted with this understanding that “by nature all men are equal.”[20]  While men rule over the animals, a man does not have natural dominion or rule over another man, he explained, since “one [human] soul is not set over another in the order of nature.”[21]

The Bible-based views of man’s common nature—of being made in God’s image, with reason—as emphasized by influential medieval Christian thinkers like Augustine, Gregory, and Aquinas, gave support to the Western idea of man’s equality under law and in rights.  Indeed, Aquinas asserted in his c1460 Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard that though men differ in traits, all men in a state of innocence are equal in rights including liberty:  “By nature all men are equal in liberty, but not in other endowments.  One man is not subordinate to another as though he were a utility.”[22]  Such views informed Western political thought during the Reformation, Enlightenment, and early American periods.

The Reformation Period:  Man’s Equal Standing and Common Dominion

The principle of man’s equality became more prominent during the period of the Protestant Reformation in Europe in the 1500s and 1600s.  For the Reformation’s teachings upheld the equal standing of Christian believers in the church and thus indirectly supported the idea of citizen equality in the civil state.  Also, separately, Catholic and Protestant Christian political reformers drew on the Bible-based idea of man’s common dominion on earth to directly argue for citizens’ equal rights, popular sovereignty, and government by consent in the civil state.

The Reformation was a Christian religious movement that sought reform of or separation from the Catholic Church which many thought had become heretical and corrupt at this time.  While Protestant religious reformers upheld man’s common nature, many questioned the authority and infallibility of the pope and church councils as well as the body and role of the clergy.  Their views of the church—of Christ as sole head and mediator of the church, Sola Scriptura, and the priesthood of all believers—promoted the equal standing of Christians in the church.

Firstly, Protestants upheld Christ as sole head and mediator of the church.  While Catholics believed from Matthew 16:13-19 that the Apostle Peter was the first pope or head of the church because Jesus gave to him exclusively “the keys of the kingdom of heaven;” Protestants believed, as French Protestant pastor John Calvin argued in his 1536 Institutes of the Christian Religion, that Peter represented the church, and so his spiritual power is given to all believers.[23]  Calvin supported the reformed view from 1 Peter 5:1 where Peter calls himself a “fellow elder.”[24]  Peter, Calvin says, had “no more power over the rest than they had over him.”[25]  Calvin affirmed from Ephesians 4:15 that “the church has Christ for its sole head…, for ‘Christ is the head.’”[26]  Protestants thus asserted that all believers have spiritual power under Christ who is the sole head and mediator of the church.

Secondly, many Protestants believed in Sola Scriptura, Latin for “scripture alone,” the idea that the Bible as the inerrant Word of God is the final authority on Christian faith, doctrine, and practice.  While Catholics believed that the Bible and church tradition are both authoritative on religious and church matters, and that the Bible needs to be interpreted correctly by the pope and bishops; many Protestants believed that the Bible alone is the final authority on religious and church matters and can be interpreted by all spirit-filled believers.  Such discernment by all believers can help prevent errors, heresies, and corruptions in the church.  Citing 1 Corinthians 14:30, John 6:45, and Galatians 2:11, German monk Martin Luther explains in his 1520 Appeal to the Ruling Class,

St. Paul says, 1 Corinthians 14 [:30], “If something superior be revealed to anyone sitting there and listening to another speaking God’s word, the first speaker must be silent and give place.”  What would be the virtue of this commandment if only the speaker, or the person in the highest position, were to be believed?  Christ Himself says, John 6 [:45], “that all Christians shall be taught by God.”  …  Who could enlighten Christian people if the pope erred, unless someone else, who had the support of Scripture, were more to be believed than he?  …
…St. Paul upbraided St. Peter as a wrongdoer [Gal. 2:11].  Hence it is the duty of every Christian to accept the implications of the faith, understand and defend it, and denounce everything false.[27]

Many Protestants thus promoted the authority of the Bible alone and the interpretation of the Bible by all believers in the church.

Thirdly, many Protestants upheld the priesthood of all Christian believers.  While Catholics saw the clergy as priests who minister to and intercede for others, many Protestants saw all believers as priests with ministerial responsibilities.  Luther supported the reformed view from 1 Peter 2:9, stating that “our baptism consecrates us all without exception, and makes us all priests.  As St. Peter says, 1 Pet. 2, ‘You [believers] are a royal priesthood and a realm of priests.’”[28]  Calvin similarly saw that all believers, though differing in abilities and callings, have a ministry function based on Ephesians 4:16 which says, “From Him [Christ] the whole body…grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”[29]  Many Protestants thus upheld the ministry of all believers in the church.

With such beliefs, many Protestants favored democratic forms of church governance such as Congregationalism in which local churches were governed by their members, and elected elders served as moderators.  Elders were elected, Luther says, for “only by the consent and command of the community should any individual person claim for himself what belongs equally to all.”[30]  The Protestant view of the equal standing of believers in the church indirectly advanced the idea of the equal standing of citizens in the civil state.

Also during this period, but separately, Catholic and Protestant political reformers drew from Genesis 1:26-28 and Judeo-Christian thought on man’s common dominion—to “subdue” the earth and to “have dominion…over every living thing”—to support popular sovereignty in the civil state.[31]  For example, Italian Jesuit Cardinal and counter-reformer Robert Bellarmine in his 1586-1593 Disputations on Controversies of the Christian Faith upheld man’s common dominion by quoting Augustine:  “The Fathers clearly teach this:  ‘God, having made man a rational being in His own Image, was unwilling that he [man] should dominate except over irrational beings, not man over man, but man over beasts.’”[32]  Quoting Pope Gregory, he reiterates, “When he [Gregory] says, ‘All men are equal by nature,’ …he rightly infers that one [man] should not be dominated over by another, as man dominates over the beasts….  Hence he adds:  ‘For it is against nature to act proudly or to wish to be feared by one’s equals.’”[33]  Bellarmine concluded that as all men have equal dominion, all men have a right to freedom.  Consequently, earthly political power is given by God to the whole people of a nation, not to any particular person.  He explains, “In a commonwealth all men are born naturally free:  consequently, the people themselves, immediately and directly, hold the political power so long as they have not transferred this power to some king or ruler.” [34]  He further expounds,

This [political] power resides…immediately in the whole state, for this power is by the Divine law, but Divine law gives this power to no particular man, therefore Divine law gives this power to the collected body.  Furthermore, in the absence of positive [man-made] law, there is no reason why, in a multitude of equals, one rather than another should dominate.[35]

As another example, Scottish Presbyterian pastor Samuel Rutherford in his 1644 Lex, Rex, or The Law and the Prince similarly drew on man’s common dominion to support government by consent.  Like Bellarmine, he argued that because all men have dominion, they all hold political power.  Referencing Genesis 1:28 and Matthew 16:18-19, he states, “As for the official authority [of governing] itself, it is virtually in all in whom any of God’s image is remaining since the fall, …as may be gathered from Gen. i.28.  …One man alone hath not the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”[36]  Thus civil government, Rutherford saw, should be based on consent.  “Political society is,” he says, “grounded on the consent of men.”[37]  With a Bible-based view of man’s common dominion, Bible-based thinkers like Bellarmine and Rutherford directly advanced radical political ideas of equal rights, popular sovereignty, and government by consent in the civil state.

The religious and political ideas that emerged during the Reformation period played an important role in advancing man’s equality in the Western world.  The Bible-based ideas of the equal standing of believers in the church and of man’s common dominion on earth indirectly and directly promoted citizens’ equal rights in the civil state.  They also eventually stimulated democratic concepts of civil government based on popular sovereignty and government by consent, though the application took time.[38]  “The Protestant emphasis on the ‘priesthood of all believers’ and its strong individualism,” observes Kent Greenawalt in his 2010 essay Religion and Equality, “helped to lay the foundation for broader notions of political and legal equality that emerged from the Enlightenment.”[39]  Judeo-Christian and Catholic thought on man’s common dominion also thus became, through thinkers like Bellarmine, foundational to the Western idea of political equality.[40]  Such political ideas influenced modern-era thinkers in Europe and America.

The Puritans in America:  An Early Application of Civil Equality with the Mayflower Compact

In the 1600s, following the Reformation, when the Pilgrims and Puritans came to America, they brought with them the Western, God-oriented worldview of man as well as their Protestant Christian beliefs and church practices.  These religious and philosophical influences shaped their political views on man’s civil equality in rights and under law.  When they settled in the colonies of Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, they applied equality in their civil governments, starting with the Mayflower Compact.

The Pilgrims and Puritans believed, like other Western, God-oriented thinkers, that men are equal before God—in origin, nature, dominion, and moral responsibility—and thus in natural rights.  Their philosophical beliefs, in turn, affected their political views on and support for government based on consent.  For example, on man’s common nature, Massachusetts Puritan pastor John Wise in his 1717 Vindication of the Government of New England Churches, alluding to Genesis 1:26-28, described man as “the Favourite Animal on Earth, in that this Part of God’s Image, viz. Reason is Congenate with his Nature.”[41]  Connecticut colony founder and Puritan pastor Thomas Hooker in his 1648 Survey of the Summe of Church-Discipline, echoing the same verses, saw that “the nature of man was preserved in one man Adam.”[42]  On man’s common moral responsibility, Wise observed from Romans 2:14-15 that the Law of Nature is “written on Men’s hearts,” “obliging each one to the performance of that which is Right.”[43]  In light of these commonalities, Wise, paraphrasing Ulpian in Justinian’s Corpus Juris Civilis, affirmed that all men are equal in natural rights, for “as Ulpian says, by a Natural Right all Men are born free; and Nature having set all Men upon a Level and made them Equals, no Servitude or Subjection can be conceived without Inequality.”[44]  Thus civil government, they saw, must be based on consent.  Thomas Hooker was one of the first defenders of consent of the governed in America, arguing in his 1638 Connecticut Court Sermon that “the foundation of authority is laid, firstly, in the free consent of the people.”[45]

The Pilgrims and Puritans also held reformed views that all Christian believers have equal standing in the church and, consequently, saw citizens as equal in the civil state.  For example, on believers’ equal spiritual power, Thomas Hooker, referencing Matthew 16:13-19, affirmed that all believers, not just a select few, hold “the keys of the kingdom of heaven” or the power that Christ gave to Peter because, he says, “those which have the same commission share alike in the same and equal power.”[46]  On believers’ equal ministry, Thomas Hooker, citing John 20:21, pointed out that all believers are called to share the Gospel of Christ, stating, “Prout me misit pater, ego mitto vos [Just as the Father sent me, I send you.].  It was said to all the Apostles equally, and to all their successors indifferently.”[47]  As all believers have a ministerial function, Massachusetts pastor John Cotton noted in his 1645 Way of the Churches of Christ in New England, so all congregations stand in “brotherly equality.”[48]  The Puritans thus practiced a congregational form of church government.[49]  Alexander W. McClure confirmed in his 1846 Life of John Cotton the Puritans’ reformed religious views of equality in the church:  “Following the Scripture rules and precedents, our [Puritan] fathers declared for the equality of all churches, church members, and church ministers.”[50]  The Puritans’ views and practices of equality in the church led to their like views and applications of equality in the civil state.

One of the Pilgrims’ first civil applications of equality was seen in their Mayflower Compact of 1620 in which they agreed to form a civil body and to create “just and equal” laws in their colony of Plymouth.[51]  While most charters at the time were between a king and subjects, the Pilgrims’ pact was among equals, with God as their King.  It thus initiated a self-government among equals.  This compact was, observes Donald S. Lutz in his 1990 essay Mayflower Compact, the “first expression” of political equality in America.[52]  As Albert C. Addison observes in his 1912 Romantic Story of the Puritan Fathers, “What was right and best in Church could not long be denied the State; and so the ‘New England Way’ inevitably broadened out until it led…into the civic and religious liberty which is now enjoyed.”[53]

The Modern Enlightenment:  Man’s Equal, Natural Rights and Government by Consent

In the wake of the Reformation, political thinkers of the Enlightenment period in Europe—including John Locke and Algernon Sidney—arose in the late 1600s and 1700s to challenge the long-held doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings and Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha.  Divine Right is the idea that kings derive authority directly from God, not from the people.  As such, the people’s consent of the king is not required, and resistance is considered a defiance of God’s will.  Locke and Sidney drew from man’s common nature and dominion to refute Divine Right and support man’s natural rights, popular sovereignty, and government by consentWilliam Blackstone drew from man’s common moral responsibility to support equality under law.  Though they articulated their views in more secular terms, these thinkers understood man’s common nature, dominion, and moral responsibility from the Bible and God-oriented thinkers of the ancient, medieval, and Reformation periods.

English theorist Robert Filmer in his 1680 treatise Patriarcha argued in favor of Divine Right based on a particular interpretation of the Bible.  He argued from Genesis that God gave Adam, the eldest parent, authority to be king or “lord paramount over his children’s children to all generations.” [54]  As such, the king of England, as the eldest parent of an ordained line, had absolute authority to govern over the people without their consent.  Filmer paraphrased Bellarmine on man’s common dominion and popular sovereignty as an opposing view:  “It is framed [by Bellarmine]:  ‘That God hath given or ordained [political] power, is evident by Scripture [in Genesis]; but God hath given it to no particular person, because by nature all men are equal; therefore he hath given power to the people or multitude.’”[55]  Patriarcha was relevant because it enabled readers to become familiar with Bellarmine’s Bible-based argument against Divine Right and because Locke and Sidney, who sided with Bellarmine, wrote significant works in response to Filmer.

British philosopher John Locke in his 1689 Two Treatises of Civil Government drew from man’s common nature and dominion to refute Divine Right and to defend man’s natural rights and consent of the governed.  While recognizing that men differ in abilities, traits, and merits, Locke believed that all men have rights to life, liberty, and property in large part because they share a common nature and dominion as seen in Genesis 1:26-28.  Echoing Bellarmine and Rutherford, Locke says in his First Treatise that “God makes him [man] ‘in his own image after his own likeness,’ makes him an intellectual creature, and so capable of dominion.”[56]  Dominion belongs to all men, Locke affirmed, not just to Adam:  “Whatever God gave by the words of this grant (Gen. i.28), it was not to Adam in particular, exclusive of all other men; …but a dominion in common with the rest of mankind.”[57]  He thus says in his First Treatise that “all men are…naturally equal” and in his Second Treatise that “all men by nature are equal.”[58]  Because men are equal in nature and dominion, and God did not make Adam “prince of his posterity” or “lord of mankind,” Locke says, all men have equal rights:  “[A]ll that share in the same common nature, faculties, and powers are in nature equal, and ought to partake in the same common rights and privileges.”[59]  In such a state, men are, he confirms, “equal and independent, all heirs to Adam’s monarchy, and consequently all monarchs too, one as much as another.”[60]  As such, no rank pre-exists among men in which one may justly rule over another without consent.

English Whig parliamentarian Algernon Sidney, like Locke, drew from man’s common nature and dominion to refute Divine Right in favor of man’s natural rights and consent.  In his 1698 Discourses Concerning Government, Sidney aligned with Bellarmine and Locke on the idea from Genesis 1:26-28 that men are equal in dominion and thus in rights.  Referencing Filmer’s Patriarcha, Bellarmine’s Disputations, and Genesis 1:28, he explains,

He [Filmer] recites an argument of Bellarmine, that “it is evident in Scripture [Gen. 1:28] God hath ordained powers; but God hath given them to no particular person, because by nature all men are equal.  Therefore, He [God] hath given power to the people or multitude.”  I leave him [Filmer] to untie that knot, if he can….  I take Bellarmine’s argument to be strong….  …  The only sort of kings mentioned there [in the Bible] with approbation is such a one “as may not raise his heart above his brethren [Deut. 17:20].”  …  Such as are versed in scripture not only know that it [Divine Right] neither agrees with the letter or spirit of that book but that it is unreasonable in itself.[61]

Sidney also supported man’s common dominion from Romans 8:17 where the Apostle Paul calls God’s children “heirs of God.”  He explains, “If children are heirs, or joint heirs, whatsoever authority Adam or Noah had, is inherited by every man in the world.”[62]  Due to man’s equal nature and dominion, he concluded, all men have equal rights and thus liberty.  Thus, just government, regardless of its form, must be based on consent.[63]  Sidney noted, like Plato and Aristotle, that because men differ in traits, characters, and roles in society, the people should choose the most wise and virtuous to govern.

English jurist and Roman law scholar William Blackstone in his 1765 Commentaries on the Laws of England upheld man’s common moral responsibility to the Law of Nature—in line with the Bible, the ancient Israelite, and Roman law—as the basis for man’s equality under law.  He asserted that all men are subject to the Law of Nature which is “binding over all the globe in all countries, at all times.”[64]

During the Enlightenment, political thinkers including Locke, Sidney, and Blackstone defended man’s equality in rights and under law based on man’s common nature, dominion, and moral responsibility as shown in the Bible and in classical and Judeo-Christian thought.  They drew from this view of man’s equality to refute Divine Right and to articulate in clear, modern terms an argument for popular sovereignty and consent of the governed in the civil state.  These thinkers were widely read by founding-era Americans and strongly influenced American political thought.

The Great Awakening:  Man’s Common Moral Condition

In the mid-1700s, a Protestant Christian evangelical revival known as the Great Awakening swept through the thirteen colonies in America.  It helped to inform or reacquaint many colonists with the Judeo-Christian teachings of the Bible including man’s common nature and moral responsibility.  Through influential revivalists of this period, the Great Awakening strengthened the American view of man’s equality, most distinctly, by teaching about man’s common moral condition.

Revivalists strengthened the idea of man’s equality, firstly, by teaching about every man’s fallen moral state.  In his 1758 Doctrine of Original Sin, citing Acts 17:26, Reformed Congregationalist pastor Jonathan Edwards, who was heavily influenced by Calvin, explains,

Things were so wisely established that all should naturally be in one and the same moral state; and not in such exceedingly different states, as that some should be perfectly innocent and holy, but others corrupt and wicked; some needing a Savior, but others needing none….  Such a vast diversity of state would by no means have agreed with the natural and necessary constitution and unavoidable situation and circumstance of the world of mankind; all made of one blood, to dwell on all the face of the earth [Acts 17:26].[65]

Scottish Presbyterian pastor and American Founder John Witherspoon—though perhaps more of a religious unifier than a revivalist—affirmed in his 1700s sermon View of the Glory of God man’s fallen moral condition from Adam, in which “the beauty and excellence of that image [of God]…was stained by sin.”[66]  Citing Ecclesiastes 7:20, Romans 3:10, Romans 3:23, and Romans 5:12, he elaborates in his Man in His Natural State,

As it is written, ‘There is none righteous, no not one [Ecclesiastes 7:20; Romans 3:10].’  And again—‘For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God [Romans 3:23].’  You may also see that the apostle [Paul] traces this disorder to its very source—‘Wherefore as by one man [Adam] sin entered into the world, and death by sin: and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned [Romans 5:12].’ …  Man is everywhere considered as in a fallen and sinful state.  …  It is not one man, or a few men, that are in Scripture called to repentance, but all without exception.”[67]

Revivalists reinforced the idea of man’s equality, secondly, by emphasizing every man’s need for God’s redemption in Christ.  Citing John 3:3-7, Luke 13:1-5, Matthew 6:12, and Luke 11:4, Edwards explains,

Christ was continually saying…that all men in their original state are sinful….  As, when he declared [in John 3:3-7] that…it was necessary for all to be born again, to be converted, and that otherwise they could not enter into the kingdom of heaven; that [in Luke 13:1-5] all were sinners…, and that everyone who did not repent should perish; withal [in Matt 6:12 and Luke 11:4] directing every one to pray to God for forgiveness of sin.[68]

Just as every person is in a fallen state, Edwards concluded, so can every person be redeemed through faith in Christ.  Citing John 20:31, he confirmed in his Concerning Faith, “‘These things are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that…ye might have life through his name.’  …[This] is the faith that all men have that are in a state of salvation.”[69]

In spreading the teachings of the Bible throughout colonial America, the Great Awakening strengthened the American view of man’s equality, most distinctly, in emphasizing man’s common moral condition—including man’s fallen moral state and need for God’s redemption.  The revival proclaimed a Gospel of hope and salvation in Christ for all people, regardless of status.  True to its tenets, the revival affected all kinds of people as Edwards observed in his 1737 Faithful Narrative:  “The work in this town, and some others around us, has been extraordinary on account of the universality of it, affecting all sorts, sober and vicious, high and low, rich and poor, wise and unwise.  It reached the most considerable families and persons to all appearance, as much as others.” [70]  In these ways, the revival reinforced colonial Americans’ philosophical and political views on mans’ equality prior to the American Revolution.

The American Founders and the Declaration:  Man’s Equality in Rights and Under Law

During America’s revolutionary and founding periods, when the American colonists turned their attention to freedom from British control and national sovereignty, the American Founders drew on the idea of man’s equality as a key basis for American independence.  Many colonists believed that the British government had violated their rights by imposing oppressive taxes and policies on them without American representation in British parliament.  The Founders argued that the colonists were entitled to consensual self-government based on man’s equality in natural rights and under law.  They largely understood such equality from man’s common origin, nature, dominion, and moral responsibility as found in the Bible and confirmed by Western thought.

On man’s common origin, for example, the Founders acknowledged from Genesis 2:7, 21-22 and Acts 17:26 that mankind, as created by God, originates from one man, Adam.  Founder Benjamin Rush in his 1798 Essays Literary, Moral, and Philosophical referred to Adam in Genesis as man’s “great progenitor.”[71]  Founder and pastor John Witherspoon recognized man’s origin from Adam as the “children of Adam” and “race of Adam.”[72]  Founder and Supreme Court Justice James Wilson in his 1790-1791 Lectures on Law affirmed from Acts 17:26 humanity’s origin from one man:  “In civil society, previously to the institution of civil government, all men are equal.  Of one blood all nations are made; from one source the whole human race has sprung.”[73]  Founder John Adams in his 1778 Defense of the Constitutions of Government similarly recognized that “all men are of the same species, and of one blood.”[74]

On man’s common nature, the Founders recognized from Genesis 1:26-28—and in line with Catholic and Protestant Christian thought as expressed by Augustine, Gregory, Aquinas, Bellarmine, Rutherford, and Locke—that man is made in God’s image with reason.  Witherspoon described man “in whom some faint rays…of the divine Image appear by reflection.”[75]  Founder Benjamin Franklin noted man’s unique rational nature and dignity from God in his 1728 Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion:  “Thou [God] hast created man, bestowing life and reason, and placed him in dignity superior to thy other earthly creatures.”[76]  Wilson affirmed man’s unique rational nature:  “The power of reasoning is…the characteristic quality, which distinguishes the human race from the inferior part of creation.”[77]

On man’s dominion, the Founders saw from Genesis 1:26-28—and in line with Bellarmine, Rutherford, Locke, and Sidney—man’s rule over the earth.  Wilson explained man’s earthly rule by quoting Genesis 1:26-28:  “The general property of man in animals, in the soil, and in the production of the soil, is the immediate gift of the bountiful Creator of all.  ‘God created man in his own image…and said unto them, be fruitful and multiply, …and have dominion…over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.’”[78]  Rush likewise saw from Genesis man’s earthly dominion due to his reason:  “It is probable that the dominion of our great progenitor [Adam] over the brute creation…was founded upon a perfect knowledge of their names and qualities, for God appears in this…to have acted by the instrumentality of human reason.”[79]  Founder John Adams in his 1774 Novanglus affirmed “the elevated rank they [men] hold in the universe, as men.”[80]

On man’s common moral responsibility, the Founders—in line with Genesis 3:22, Genesis 4:7, Romans 2:14-15, the Israelites, Aristotle, Cicero, Ulpian, Justinian, Roman law, and Blackstone—saw that all men have a moral obligation to the Law of Nature.  Wilson recognized that the Creator God has prescribed “a law for our conduct” and, from Romans 2:15, that this Law of Nature is “engraven by God on the hearts of men.”[81]  This law, which God reveals and confirms in the Bible, says Wilson, applies to all men:  “The law of nature is universal.  …The law of nature, having its foundation in the constitution and state of man, has an essential fitness for all mankind, and binds them without distinction.”[82]  Revolutionary leader and Founder Samuel Adams in his 1794 letter to the Massachusetts legislature also cited Romans 2:15 on every man’s duty to abide by the Law of Nature:  “All men are equally bound by the laws of nature, or…the laws of the Creator:—They are imprinted by the finger of God on the heart of man….  [I]t is confirmed by written revelation.”[83]  Rush in his 1792 On the Punishment of Murder likewise affirmed the moral law in man’s heart as described in Romans 2:15, recognizing “the sense of justice so universal among all nations” which is “written by the finger of God upon every human heart.”[84]

From these commonalities seen in the Bible, founding-era Americans saw that all men are naturally equal before God.  With such understanding, revolutionary activist James Otis in his 1762 Vindication of the Conduct of the House of Representatives remarked that “God made all men naturally equal.”[85]  Witherspoon observed in his 1774 Lectures on Moral Philosophy that “men are originally and by nature equal.[86]  John Adams stated that “all men by nature are equal.”[87]  Wilson asserted that “in civil society, previous to civil government, all men are equal[88]

The Founders explicitly acknowledged the Bible and Western thought as the primary sources for man’s natural equality.  On the Bible as a source, Rush stated in his 1786 Of the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic,

The history of the creation of man, and of the relation of our species to each other by birth, which is recorded in the Old Testament, is the best refutation that can be given to the divine right of kings, and the strongest argument that can be used in favor of the original and natural equality of all mankind.[89]

Rush in his 1791 Defense of the Use of the Bible as a Schoolbook confirmed of the Bible that “this divine book, above all others, favours that equality among mankind.”[90]  The Founders also confirmed the influence of Western thought of the ancient, medieval, and modern periods on their philosophical and political views of man’s equality.  For example, John Adams named Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, and Sidney as those from whom the Founders drew support:

“They,” the popular leaders, “begin by reminding the people of the elevated rank they hold in the universe, as men; that all men by nature are equal.” … These…are the principles of Aristotle and Plato, of Livy and Cicero, and Sidney, Harrington, and Locke; the principles of nature and eternal reason; the principles on which the whole government over us now stands.”[91]

Declaration author Jefferson confirmed in a 1825 letter that the Declaration’s authority rests on “the harmonizing sentiments of the day, …as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, etc.”[92]  These sentiments likely included Bellarmine of whom Jefferson would have known through Locke, Sidney, and Filmer.[93]  As such, the Bible and Western, God-oriented thought significantly impacted the Founders’ understanding and assertion of man’s equality during the founding era and in the Declaration.

With such a view of man’s natural equality, the Founders held that all men are equal in natural rights of life and liberty and under law.  On man’s equal rights, for example, John Adams affirmed in a letter, “That all men are born to equal rights is true.”[94]  Wilson recognized that “the natural rights and duties of man belong equally to all” and that “in civil society, previous to civil government…all men are free.”[95]  Founder George Mason wrote in the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights that “all men are by nature equally free and independent.”[96]  Founder Alexander Hamilton in his 1775 Farmer Refuted observed that “natural liberty is a gift of the beneficent Creator, to the whole human race.”[97]  Samuel Adams in his Rights of Colonists, quoting Locke, stated, “‘Just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty,’ in matters spiritual and temporal is a thing that all men are clearly entitled to by the eternal and immutable laws of God and nature.”[98]  Just as all individuals are equal and free, Wilson further explained, so are civil states “sovereign and independent.”[99]  Because men are equal in rights, the Founders understood, just government requires the people’s consent.

In accordance with such views of man’s equality, the Founders’ Declaration of Independence of 1776 asserts, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” and “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”  It also declares the American people’s right and intent to “assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God entitle them” and to become “Free and Independent States.”[100]

To be sure, the institution of slavery that existed in colonial and early America was, as many early Americans saw, a direct contradiction to and a dark shadow on the American principle of equality.  This system had developed in America because many Southern colonies, later states, had agricultural economies that were dependent on slave labor for crops.  African-American slaves were—against their will—imported, bought, and sold as property.  Children and descendants of slaves were also typically considered slaves.  During the Revolutionary period, an increasing number of early Americans including many Founders protested slavery as an immoral practice that sorely violated the Law of Nature and man’s natural rights.  For example, Founder and lawyer James Otis observed in his 1764 Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved that slavery was “the most shocking violation of the law of nature.”[101]  Founder and physician Benjamin Rush in his 1773 tract On Slave Keeping urged Americans to oppose slavery as “a vice which degrades human nature.”[102]  Pastor Samuel Cooke of Massachusetts, referencing Romans 2:11, preached in 1770 against slavery, saying that God “is no respecter of persons” and that “we, the patrons of liberty, have dishonored the Christian name and degraded human nature nearly to a level with the beasts that perish.”[103]  Though the American Revolution did not end slavery in America, the Declaration’s explicit assertion of equality among all men laid the groundwork for the future abolition of slavery.  As Bernard Bailyn explains in his 1967 Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, slavery was “subjected to severe pressure as a result of the extension of revolutionary ideas, and it bore the marks ever after.  As long as the institution lasted, the burden of proof would lie with its advocates to show why the statement ‘all men are created equal’ did not mean precisely what it said:  all men, ‘white or black.’”[104]

During the American Revolution and founding of the United States, the Founders articulated in the Declaration an important principle of American political thought—the equality of all men.  They believed that men were equal not in ability, merit, character, or virtue—factors yet important for civil service—but in the sight of God.[105]  They supported this principle with a Western, Bible-based worldview of man’s common origin, nature, dominion, and moral responsibility.  From this natural equality, they asserted man’s equality in natural rights and under law, and just government by consent.  The Americans separated from Britain and formed the new nation of the United States with this justification.  In this way, the principle of equality became a part of America’s founding philosophy.  Later, it became the primary argument against slavery in America.  As Thomas Kidd affirms in his 2010 God of Liberty:  A Religious History of the American Revolution, the Declaration’s assertion of man’s “equality by creation” was “the most powerful and productive ideological force to come out of the Revolution.”[106]

The U. S. Constitution of 1787:  The New Republic and The Problem of Slavery

The American Founders favored a Constitutional Republic as the form of government for the United States because it reflected the Declaration’s principles and man’s natural equality.  When drafting the U. S. Constitution of 1787, the Founders created such a self-government for the new nation that essentially upheld man’s equality in rights and under law.  The New Republic uniquely applied such equality in being based on popular sovereignty, or the people’s rule, and the consent of the governed and in having a constitution of laws.  To be sure, the Constitution initially fell short of the Declaration’s ideal because it allowed for the continuance of slavery, but this flaw was later remedied.

The Founders’ republic upheld man’s equality in rights because the government was based on popular sovereignty and authorized by the people’s consent.  All qualified citizens could elect or be elected to public offices, and the elected representatives served and governed for the people.  Founder Thomas Jefferson observed in a 1816 letter, “The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen, in his person and property, and in their management.”[107]  Founder Benjamin Rush in his 1787 Thoughts Upon Female Education praised “the equal share that every citizen has in the liberty, and the possible share he may have in the government of our country.”[108]  Founder James Wilson explained that in a republic “the doors of publick honours and offices are, on the broad principles of equal liberty, thrown open to all.”[109]  The Founders’ republic upheld man’s equality under law with a constitution of laws so that all the people, including public servants, were subject to the same, equal laws.  Constitution architect James Madison in his 1785 Memorial and Remonstrance affirmed that equality “ought to be the basis of every law.”[110]

To be sure, the Founders’ Constitution did not fully realize the ideal of equality because it initially permitted the continuation of slavery in the states—which meant that slaves did not have equal rights or equal protection of the law.  The Founders compromised on the issue of slavery so that enough states would ratify the Constitution and form the union.  For Southern states would not ratify the Constitution unless slavery was allowed.  Thus Article 1, Section 9, in the Constitution says, “The Migration or Importation of such Persons [slaves] as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress.”  Article 1, Section 2, of the Constitution also tolerated inequality because it allowed states to count slaves as three-fifths of one free person in determining a state’s total population.  This “Three-Fifths Compromise” allowed for inequality because it assigned different values to free and slave persons and did not give slaves voting rights.

Though some Founders inherited and/or owned slaves, they overwhelmingly recognized and admitted that slavery was an immoral, unjust practice contrary to the Law of Nature and man’s equal, natural rights.  Deeply conflicted, most voiced dissatisfaction with slavery and expressed hope that it could be abolished.  For example, Wilson acknowledged that slavery was “repugnant to the principles of natural law, that such a state should subsist in any social system.”[111]  Madison stated at the 1787 Constitutional Convention that he “thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men.”[112]  He called slavery “the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man.”[113]  In his 1784 Notes on the States of Virginia, Jefferson called slavery “a political and moral evil.”[114]  Indeed, many Founders expressed concern that God would judge the nation for allowing slavery to continue.  Jefferson wrote, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.”[115]  Rush expressed, “National crimes require national punishments, …it cannot pass with impunity, unless God shall cease to be just or merciful.”[116]  Founder George Mason stated at the Constitutional Convention that slavery will “bring the judgment of heaven on a Country.”[117]

In drafting the Constitution of 1787, the Founders created a bright constitutional republic for America that applied in important ways the Declaration’s principle of equality—by popular sovereignty, consent of the governed, and a constitution of laws.  The Constitution’s expression of equality was dimmed, to be sure, by its initial compromise on slavery.  While the Founders tolerated slavery in order to achieve national unification, many expressed fear that God would judge the nation for slavery and hope that it would be abolished.  Such consequence and outcome occurred with the American Civil War.

The American Civil War:  Equal Rights, Equal Protection of Law, and the Abolition of Slavery

The American Civil War of 1861-1865 was a significant event in American history that greatly impacted the nation’s progress toward and realization of equality for all citizens.  The Civil War broke out in large part due to the political unrest that arose over the issue of slavery.  The Northern states of the Union protested slavery as an immoral practice that violated the Law of Nature and man’s natural rights.  They fought initially to preserve the union but later, as scholars note, to end slavery in America.[118]  The Southern states of the Confederacy defended slavery as being under the protection and sovereignty of constitutional and state rights.  They viewed the North’s challenges to these rights as a violation of the Union compact.  Both North and South cited the Bible to support their positions yet could not agree.  When the Southern states seceded, war ensued.  President Abraham Lincoln led the Union’s fight against slavery, believing that slavery contradicted the principles of equality and rights in the Declaration of Independence.  Though Lincoln did not subscribe to all traditional Christian doctrines, his belief in God and the Bible further shaped his view of slavery as an immoral evil.  Lincoln was instrumental in focusing the Union’s cause on ending slavery, declaring in his 1863 Emancipation Proclamation that all slaves in Confederate states “are, and henceforward shall be free.”[119]  With the Union’s win, the war ended slavery and gave former slaves equal rights and laws.

Prior to the Civil War, from the 1840s to 1860s, Americans debated over what the Bible said about slavery, for most saw the Bible as a moral guide for society.  Pro-slavery activists argued from verses like Genesis 12:16, Leviticus 25:44, 1 Corinthians 7:21-24, and Ephesians 6:5 that because the Bible did not eradicate but regulated slavery, God approved of the institution.[120]  Anti-slavery activists or abolitionists argued from larger biblical principles as found in Genesis 1:26-28, Romans 2:14-15, and related verses that all men are created in God’s image, have certain natural rights, and are morally responsible to the Law of Nature.  They also argued from the book of Exodus that slavery was not God’s ultimate will for His people since the prophet Moses led the enslaved Israelites out of Egypt to freedom.[121]  Abolitionists further cited Leviticus 25:10 as inscribed on the Philadelphia Liberty Bell to bring to mind the Declaration’s principles of equality and liberty.  Leviticus 25:10 states, “Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land Unto All the Inhabitants thereof.”[122]  As Americans could not agree on the Bible’s position on slavery, the nation was left to resolve the issue through the Civil War and leaders like Lincoln.

President Abraham Lincoln, who presided over the nation during the Civil War, adhered to the founding rationale of the Declaration of Independence to determine his perspective on the Constitution and slavery and his actions in the war.  Lincoln believed that the Declaration provided “the definitions and axioms of free society,” and he confirmed in his 1861 speech at Independence Hall that this founding document was the source of his political philosophy:  “I have never had a feeling, politically, that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence.”[123]  The Constitution, he believed, should reflect and uphold the ideas in the Declaration.  While greatly respecting the Constitution, Lincoln saw that its permitting of slavery was a moral and philosophical flaw because it contradicted the Declaration’s principles of equality and natural rights.  He lamented in a 1854 speech how slavery led so many Americans into “open war” with the Declaration and gave the impression “that there is no right principle of action but self-interest.”[124]  He illustrated what he saw as the proper relationship between the Declaration and Constitution with Proverbs 25:11 which states, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.”[125]  The Declaration and its principles, he thought, were like the “apples of gold” framed by the Constitution as the “settings of silver.”  He expounded on this picture in his 1861 Fragment on the Constitution and the Union:

Without the Constitution and the Union, we could not have attained…our great prosperity.  There [however] is something back of these, entwining itself more closely about the human heart.  That something, is the principle of “Liberty to all”….  The expression of that principle, in our Declaration of Independence, was most happy, and fortunate.  …[W]ithout it, we could not, I think, have secured our free government….  No oppressed, people will fight, and endure, as our fathers did, without the promise of something better, than a mere change of masters.  The assertion of that principle, at that time, was the word, “fitly spoken” [Prov. 25:11] which has proved an “apple of gold” to us.  The Union, and the Constitution, are the picture of silver, subsequently framed around it.  The picture was made, not to conceal, or destroy the apple; but to adorn, and preserve it.  The picture was made for the apple—not the apple for the picture.  So let us act, that neither picture, or apple shall ever be blurred, or bruised or broken.[126]

Allen Guelzo in his 2017 Abraham Lincoln as a Man of Ideas explains of Lincoln’s view, “The Constitution did not exist merely for its own sake, as though it were only a set of procedural rules with no better goal than letting people do what they pleased with what they pleased; it was intended to serve the interests of ‘the principle of ‘Liberty to all.’’”[127]  The Founders, Lincoln saw, permitted slavery in the Constitution in order to secure the republic, but they hoped for its eventual demise.  “They meant simply to declare the right,” he explained in a 1857 speech, “so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit.”[128]  Indeed, Lincoln saw the Declaration as a promise that all Americans would eventually realize their rights, a “promise that in due time the weights would be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance.”[129]  Thus, in his 1863 Gettysburg Address, Lincoln cited the Declaration’s principle of equality as the primary justification for the Union’s cause, stating, “Fourscore and seven years ago [1776] our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.  Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can endure.”[130]  In this way, Lincoln’s political thought reflected the Declaration and was, describes Tony Williams in a 2020 review, “a lens into the ideals of the American founding.”[131]

In addition to his views on the Declaration, Lincoln’s beliefs about God and the Bible also influenced his position and actions in the Civil War, for he sought direction from these sources in all that he did.  On his belief in the Bible as a moral guide, Lincoln in a 1864 speech to the Committee of Colored People of Baltimore expressed, “In regard to this great book, …it is the best gift God has given to man.  All the good Saviour [Jesus] gave to the world was communicated through this book.  But for it we could not know right from wrong.  All things most desirable for man’s welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it.”[132]  Lincoln also reportedly once remarked, “I know the Lord is always on the side of the right.  But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord’s side.”[133]  Thus, Lincoln supported the Union’s cause against slavery because he believed that it was the moral position favored by God and the Bible.  For instance, in a 1856 speech encouraging the North to fight against slavery, he exhorted, “Let us reinaugurate the good old ‘central ideas’ of the republic.  We can do it.  The human heart is with us; God is with us.  We shall again be able…to declare…that ‘all men are created equal.’”[134]  In a September 22, 1862, meeting prior to issuing his Emancipation Proclamation, he reportedly told his cabinet, “I have made a solemn vow before God, that if [Confederate] General Lee was driven back from Pennsylvania, I would crown the result by the declaration of freedom to the slaves.”[135]  Thus Lincoln’s proclamation was, as Bruce Feiler observes in his 2009 America’s Prophet:  Moses and the American story, “an outgrowth of his relationship with God.”[136]

Further, in his 1865 Second Inaugural Address near the end of the war, Lincoln repeatedly cited the Bible to confirm the evil of slavery, recognize God’s judgment, and call for the nation’s healing and unity.  On the evil of slavery, Lincoln referenced Genesis 3:19 and Matthew 7:1 in stating, “It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged.”[137]  On God’s judgment against evil, Lincoln quoted Jesus in Matthew 18:7:  “‘Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.’”[138]  Citing Psalm 19:9, he suggested that the war was God’s judgment on the nation for slavery, saying, “If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which…He [God] now wills to remove, and that He gives…this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?  …[I]t must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’”  On the nation’s healing and unity, Lincoln drew from Colossians 3:8, Philemon 1:4-5, 2 Thessalonians 1:3, Psalm 147:3, and James 1:27 in stating, “With malice toward none, with charity for all, …let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan.”[139] Lincoln clearly esteemed the Bible as a guiding moral lamp and knew that the people did too.

Following the Civil War and the Union’s victory, Congress adopted Amendments 13, 14, and 15, known as the Civil War Amendments.  The 13th Amendment of 1865 overrode the Constitution’s slavery clause and made slavery illegal, except as punishment for a crime, in the United States.  The 14th Amendment of 1868 repealed the Constitution’s Three-Fifths Compromise by ensuring that all citizens—including all former slaves—had equal rights and “equal protection of laws” in the states.  The 15th Amendment of 1870 gave all male citizens—including former slaves—the right to vote regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”  (To be sure, the 15th Amendment did not give women the right to vote.  Women gained this right in 1920 with the 19th Amendment.  Later, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibited any further voter discrimination and secured voting rights for all citizens.)

The Civil War played an important role in advancing the Declaration’s principles of equality and rights in the New Republic.  With much conviction and encouragement from leaders like President Lincoln—who upheld the Declaration’s idea that “all men are created equal” and the Bible-based view of the immorality of slavery—the nation fought, reunified, and amended its Constitution to further realize these values.  The Civil War led to the abolition of slavery and to more equal rights and equal protection of the law for all citizens in America.

Conclusion

One of the most important principles that the American Founders followed when creating the new nation of the United States was the shining axiom, as asserted in the Declaration, that all men are created equal.  The Founders recognized that all men, though differing in their abilities and traits, are equal in the eyes of God.  Their understanding of this principle came in large part from classical and biblical ideas of man’s common origin, nature, dominion, moral condition, and moral responsibility.  The Bible and Judeo-Christian thought greatly influenced this view by revealing that all men originated from one man Adam, are made in God’s image with reason, and are subject to the Law of Nature.  Because of these commonalities—as many classical and God-oriented thinkers saw—all men are equal under law and in natural rights to life and liberty.  Just governments, then, are based on the people’s consent.  This Western view of man’s equality can be seen developing in the ancient, medieval, Reformation, modern Enlightenment, and early American periods—though its full application took time.  Ultimately, the Founders created a constitutional republic for America that was based on popular sovereignty and government by consent and that upheld man’s equality under law and in rights.  Though early Americans struggled with the moral problem of slavery, the Civil War ended this practice and led to greater equality for all citizens.  Today, the principle of equality brightly shines as a great light of the American idea.

—————

[1] See Russell Kirk, The Roots of American Order (Washington, DC:  Regnery Gateway, 1991), 408; Kent Greenawalt, “Religion and Equality,” in Christianity and Human Rights:  An Introduction, eds. John Witte, Jr., and Frank S. Alexander (New York:  Cambridge U Press, 2010), 236; John Witte, Jr., God’s Joust, God’s Justice:  Law and Religion in the Western Tradition (Grand Rapids, MI:  Eerdmans, 2006), 49.

[2] boldface mine

[3] All Bible verses are taken from the New International Version (NIV) unless otherwise noted.

[4] New King James Version (NKJV).

[5] Theodore Buckley, ed., Aristotle’s Treatise on Rhetoric (London:  Henry G. Bo N, 1853), bk. 1, 86.

[6] Francis Barham, ed., The Political Works of Marcus Tullius Cicero, in Two Volumes, Vol. 1 (London:  Edmund Spettigue, 1841), 35, 40, 48.

[7] Alan Watson, trans., The Digest of Justinian, Vol. 4 (Philadelphia:  U of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), bk. 50, 473.  Ulpian’s statement originally appeared in the Roman law record, Sabinus, books 42-43.  It reappeared in the Digest which is part of Justinian’s Corpus Juris Civilis.

[8] Allan C. Johnson et al., Ancient Roman Statutes:  A Translation with Introduction, Commentary, Glossary, and Index, ed. Clyde Pharr (Austin, TX:  U of Texas Press, 1961), table 9, law no. 1-2, 12.

[9] See Watson, trans., Digest of Justinian, Vol. 4, bk. 50, 473.  The Digest is part of Justinian’s Corpus.

[10] On men’s differences, the Greco-Romans saw that citizens’ diverse roles in society benefited their communities, which caused them, Plato notes, to “care more for the city and for one another.”  See B. Jowett, trans., The Republic of Plato, 2nd ed. (Oxford:  Clarendon Press, 1881), 47-48, 101, 243; John Gillies, ed. and trans., Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics, Vol. 2, 2nd ed. (London:  Printed for T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1804), 87-89, 232, 403, 409-410; Francis Barham, ed., “Cicero’s Commonwealth,” in Political Works of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Vol. 1, 179.

[11] John Gillies, ed. and trans., Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics, 2nd ed., Vol. 2.  (London:  Printed for T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1804), bk. 6, 333.

[12] Barham, ed., Political Works of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Vol. 1, 179.  The Greeks and Romans opposed the equalizing or redistribution of wealth by government.  They thought it had minimal, if any, positive outcomes in society and was often misused and abused.  See Gillies, ed., Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics, Vol. 2, bk. 2, 107-108, 110-111.

[13] Charles H. Monro, trans., The Digest of Justinian, Vol. 1 (London:  C. J. Clay and Sons, Cambridge U Press, 1904), bk. 1, 4.  Ulpian’s statement appears in The Institutes of Justinian and in The Digest of Justinian which are part of Justinian’s Corpus.

[14] Scott Robinson, “Equality,” in The Origins of Our Founding Principles, ed. Chris Hammons (Houston, TX:  Morris Family Center for Law & Liberty, Houston Baptist U, 2020), 199.

[15] Marcus Dods, ed., The Works of Aurelius Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, Vol. 1:  The City of God (Edinburgh:  T. & T. Clark, 1871), bk. 12, 514; J. G. Pilkington, trans., The Confessions of St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (Edinburgh:  T. & T. Clark, 1876), bk. 13, 391.

[16] Marcus Dods, ed., The Works of Aurelius Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, Vol. 2:  The City of God (Edinburgh:  T. & T. Clark, 1881), bk. 19, 323-324.  boldface mine

[17] Members of the English Church, trans., Morals on the Book of Job, by Saint Gregory the Great, In Three Volumes, Vol. 2, Parts 3 & 4 (Oxford:  John Henry Parker, F. and J. Rivington, 1845), bk. 21, 533-534.  Boldface mine.  Genesis 9:1-3 says, “God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.  The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth….  Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you.  Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.’”

[18] R. W. Carlyle and A. J. Carlyle, A History of Mediaeval Political Theory in the West, Vol. 1:  The Second Century to the Ninth (Edinburgh and London:  William Blackwood and Sons, 1903), 114.

[19] Fathers of the English Dominican Province, trans., The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, Part 1, Vol. 1 (London:  R. & T. Washbourne, 1911), Q. 3, 31.

[20] Fathers of the English Dominican Province, trans., The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, Part 2 (Second Part) (London:  Burns, Oates, & Washbourne, 1922), Q. 104, 36.  boldface mine

[21] Fathers of the English Dominican Province, trans., The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, 2nd ed., Part 1, Vol. 3 (London:  Burns, Oates, & Washbourne, 1922), Q. 64, 174.

[22] Thomas Aquinas, “Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard,” in Thomas Aquinas:  Philosophical Texts, ed. Thomas Gilby (London:  Oxford U Press, 1951), 385-386.  boldface mine

[23] John Allen, trans., The Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin, In Three Volumes, Vol. 3 (Philadelphia:  Published by Philip H. Nicklin, 1816), 112-113.  Matthew 16:13-19 states, “He [Jesus] asked his disciples, …  ‘Who do you say that I am?’  Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’  Jesus replied, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah….  And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.  I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’”

[24] NKJV

[25] Allen, trans., Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 3, 112-113.  In 1 Peter 5:1, the Apostle Peter says to believers, “To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder and a witness of Christ’s sufferings who also will share in the glory to be revealed.“  Calvin also cites Acts 15:6-29, Acts 11:2, Acts 8:14-15, and Galatians 1, 2 on this point.

[26] Allen, trans., Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 3, 114.  In Ephesians 4:15, the Apostle Paul exhorts believers, “Speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of Him who is the head, that is, Christ.”

[27] Martin Luther, An Appeal to the Ruling Class of German Nationality as to the Amelioration of the State of Christendom, 1520, in Martin Luther:  Selections From His Writings, ed. John Dillenberger (New York:  Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1961), 412-415.

[28] Luther, Appeal to the Ruling Class, 408.  In 1 Peter 2:9, the Apostle Peter tells believers, “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession.”

[29] Allen, trans., Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 3, 114.

[30] Luther, Appeal to the Ruling Class, 409.

[31] NKJV

[32] Kathleen E. Murphy, trans.  De Laicis or The Treatise on Civil Government by Robert Bellarmine (New York:  Fordham U Press, 1928), 11.  Bellarmine’s De Laicis appears in Book Three of his Disputations or Disputationes de Controversiis Christianae Fidei.  Bellarmine cites Augustine in City of God.  boldface mine

[33] Murphy, trans., De Laicis, 35-36.  Bellarmine cites Gregory in Morals on the Book of Job.  boldface mine

[34] John C. Rager, The Political Philosophy of Blessed Cardinal Bellarmine:  Dissertation (Washington, DC:  Catholic U of America, 1926), 15.  boldface mine.  This quote appears in Bellarmine’s De Clericis, Chapter VII, in his Disputations.

[35] Murphy, trans., De Laicis, 25.

[36] Rutherford, Lex, Rex, Q. 7, 25.  boldface mine

[37] Rutherford, Lex, Rex, Q. 13, 52.

[38] H. Richard Niebuhr, The Kingdom of God in America (Middletown, CT:  Weslayan U Press, 1988), 23-24.

[39] Kent Greenawalt, “Religion and Equality,” in Christianity and Human Rights:  An Introduction, eds. John Witte Jr. and Frank S. Alexander (New York:  Cambridge U Press, 2010), 236.

[40] See John C. Rager, Democracy and Bellarmine:  An Examination of Blessed Cardinal Bellarmine’s Defense of Popular Government and the Influence of His Political Theory Upon the American Declaration of Independence (Shelbyville, IN:  Qualityprint, 1926); Matthew Bunson, “Bellarmine, Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence,” National Catholic Register, 26 June 2016, repub. 4 July 2018, https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/bellarmine-jefferson-and-the-declaration-of-independence.

[41] John Wise, “A Vindication of the Government of New England Churches, 1717,” in Puritan Political Ideas, 1558-1794, ed. Edmund S. Morgan (Indianapolis, IN:  Hackett Publishing Co., 1965, 2003), 254.

[42] Thomas Hooker, A Survey of the Summe of Church-Discipline (London:  Printed by A. M. for John Bellamy, 1648), 261.

[43] Wise, Vindication, 254.

[44] Wise, Vindication, 259-260.  As appears in the Institutes of Justinian and Digest of Justinian in the Corpus Juris Civilis, Ulpian states that “by natural law all were born free.”  See Charles H. Monro, trans., The Digest of Justinian, Vol. 1 (London:  C. J. Clay and Sons:  Cambridge U Press, 1904), 4.

[45] Thomas Hooker, “Sermon Before the Connecticut General Court in Harford, May 31, 1638,” in The Puritan Tradition in America, 1620-1730, Revised ed., ed. Alden T. Vaughan (Hanover, NH:  U Press of New England, 1972), 83.

[46] Hooker, Summe, 214-215.  boldface mine

[47] Hooker, Summe, 26.  In John 20:21, Jesus says to his disciples, “‘Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’”

[48] John Cotton, The Way of the Churches of Christ in New England (London:  Printed by Matthew Simmons, 1645), 54-55, footnote 50.

[49] On the Puritan’s New England church governments, see John Cotton’s 1644 Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and 1645 Way of the Churches of Christ in New England.

[50] Alexander W. McClure, The Life of John Cotton, Limited ed. (Boston, 1870), 165.

[51] William Bradford, “Of Plymouth Plantation, 1602-1646,” in The Mayflower Papers:  Selected Writings of Colonial New England, eds. Nathanial Philbrick and Thomas Philbrick (New York:  Penguin Classics, 2007), 14.

[52] Donald S. Lutz, “Mayflower Compact 1620,” in Roots of the Republic:  American Founding Documents Interpreted, ed. Stephen. L. Schechter (Madison, WI: Madison House 1990), 21.

[53] Albert C. Addison, The Romantic Story of the Puritan Fathers and Their Founding of New Boston and the Massachusetts Bay Colony (Boston, MA:  L. C. Page & Co., 1912), 157.

[54] Robert Filmer, Patriarcha, or The Natural Power of Kings, 1680, in Two Treatises on Civil Government by John Locke, ed. Henry Morley (London:  George Routledge and Sons, 1884), 15-16.

[55] Filmer, Patriarcha, 15.  Boldface mine.

[56] John Locke, Two Treatises on Civil Government, Book 1 (London:  George Routledge and Sons, 1884), 97.

[57] Locke, Two Treatises, Book 1, 96.

[58] Locke, Two Treatises, Book 1, 112; John Locke, Two Treatises on Civil Government, Book 2 (London:  George Routledge and Sons, 1884), 217.

[59] Locke, Two Treatises, Book 1, 122-123.

[60] Locke, Two Treatises, Book 1, 172.

[61] Algernon Sidney, Discourses Concerning Government, In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 (Edinburgh:  Printed for G. Hamilton and J. Balfour, 1750), 24-26.  Boldface mine.

[62] Sidney, Discourses, Vol. 1, 125.  Romans 8:17 says, “If we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.”

[63] Sidney, Discourses, Vol. 1, 442, 37.

[64] Tucker, ed., Blackstone’s Commentaries, 41.

[65] Jonathan Edwards, “The Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin Defended,” 1758, in The Works of President Edwards, in Four Volumes, Vol. 2, Reprint of the Worcester ed. (New York:  Leavitt & Allen, 1858), 492.  Boldface mine

[66] John Witherspoon, “A View of the Glory of God Humbling to the Soul,” in The Works of the Rev. John Witherspoon, in Four Volumes, Vol. 2, 2nd ed., ed. John Rodgers (Philadelphia:  Printed and Published by William W. Woodward, 1802), 141-142.

[67] John Witherspoon, “Man in His Natural State,” in The Works of the Rev. John Witherspoon, in Four Volumes, Vol. 2, 2nd ed., ed. John Rodgers (Philadelphia:  Printed and Published by William W. Woodward, 1802), 160.  Boldface mine

[68] Edwards, Doctrine of Original Sin, 505-506.  Boldface mine

[69] Jonathan Edwards, “Miscellaneous Observations:  Observations Concerning Faith,” in The Works of President Edwards, in Four Volumes, Vol. 2, Reprint of Worcester ed. (New York:  Leavitt & Allen, 1858), 634. Boldface mine

[70] Jonathan Edwards, “Narrative of Surprising Conversions:  A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God,” 1737, in The Works of President Edwards, in Four Volumes, Vol. 3, Reprint of Worcester ed. (New York:  Leavitt & Allen, 1858), 238.

[71] Benjamin Rush, “Observations on the Study of the Latin and Greek Languages,” 1791, in Essays Literary, Moral, and Philosophical, 1798, by Benjamin Rush, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Printed by Thomas and William Bradford, 1806), 48.

[72] John Witherspoon, “The Object of a Christian’s Desire in Religious Worship,” in The Works of the Rev. John Witherspoon, in Four Volumes, Vol. 2, 2nd ed., ed. John Rodgers (Philadelphia:  Printed and Published by William W. Woodward, 1802), 14; John Witherspoon, “The Righteous Scarcely Saved, and the Wicked Certainly Destroyed,” in The Works of the Rev. John Witherspoon, in Four Volumes, Vol. 2, 2nd ed., ed. John Rodgers (Philadelphia:  Printed and Published by William W. Woodward, 1802), 280.

[73] James Wilson, “Lectures on Law,” 1790-1791, Part 1, in The Works of the Honourable James Wilson, Vol. 1, ed. Bird Wilson (Philadelphia:  Lorenzo Press, Printed for Bronson and Chauncey, 1804), 306.

[74] John Adams, “Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America,” 1778, Vol. 1, in The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Vol. 4, ed. Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1851), 380. Boldface mine

[75] Witherspoon, View of the Glory of God Humbling to the Soul, 140.

[76] Benjamin Franklin, “Essays on Religious and Moral Subjects and the Economy of Life:  Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion,” 1728, in The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. 2, ed. Jared Sparks (Boston:  Tappan & Whittemore, 1836), 4.

[77] Wilson, Lectures on Law, Vol. 1, 251.

[78] James Wilson, “Lectures on Law,” 1790-1791, Part 3, in The Works of the Honourable James Wilson, Vol. 3, ed. Bird Wilson (Philadelphia:  Lorenzo Press, Printed for Bronson and Chauncey, 1804), 182.

[79] Rush, Observations on the Study of the Latin and Greek Languages, 48.

[80] John Adams, “Controversial Papers of the Revolution:  Novanglus, or A History of the Dispute with America,” 1774, in The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Vol. 4, ed. Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1851), 15.

[81] Wilson, Lectures on Law, Vol. 1, 108, 64.

[82] Wilson, Lectures on Law, Vol. 1, 138, 141.  Boldface mine

[83] Samuel Adams, “To the Legislature of Massachusetts, Jan 17, 1794,” in The Writings of Samuel Adams, 1778-1802, Vol. 4, ed. Harry A. Cushing (New York:  G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1908), 356. Boldface mine

[84] Benjamin Rush, “An Enquiry into the Consistency of the Punishment of Murder by Death, with Reason and Revelation (On the Punishment of Murder by Death),” 1792, in Essays Literary, Moral, and Philosophical, 1798, by Benjamin Rush, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia:  Printed by Thomas and William Bradford, 1806), 174.  Boldface mine

[85] James Otis, A Vindication of the Conduct of the House of Representatives of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay (Boston:  Printed by Edes & Gill, 1762), 17-18. Boldface mine

[86] Varnum L. Collins, ed., Lectures on Moral Philosophy by John Witherspoon, 1774 (Princeton, NJ:  Princeton U Press, 1912), 71.  Boldface mine

[87] John Adams, Novanglus, 15.  Boldface mine

[88] Wilson, Lectures on Law, Vol. 1, 309.  Boldface mine

[89] Benjamin Rush, “Thoughts Upon the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic,” 1786, in Essays Literary, Moral, and Philosophical, 1798, by Benjamin Rush, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia, PA:  Printed by Thomas and William Bradford, 1806), 9.  boldface mine

[90] Benjamin Rush, “A Defense of the Use of the Bible as a Schoolbook,” 10 March 1791, in Essays Literary, Moral, and Philosophical, 1798, by Benjamin Rush, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia, PA:  Printed by Thomas and William Bradford, 1806), 112.  boldface mine

[91] John Adams, Novanglus, 14-15.  Boldface mine.  Adams quoted a December 26, 1774, article in the Massachusetts Gazette by Massachusettenis.

[92] Thomas Jefferson to Henry Lee, Monticello, 8 May 1825, in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 7, ed. H. A. Washington (Washington, DC:  Taylor & Maury, 1854), 407.

[93] See John C. Rager, Democracy and Bellarmine:  An Examination of Blessed Cardinal Bellarmine’s Defense of Popular Government and the Influence of His Political Theory Upon the American Declaration of Independence (Shelbyville, IN:  Qualityprint, 1926); Matthew Bunson, “Bellarmine, Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence,” National Catholic Register, 26 June 2016, repub. 4 July 2018, https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/bellarmine-jefferson-and-the-declaration-of-independence.  Bunson affirms in his 2018 editorial, “If Jefferson was influenced by Bellarmine, the author of the Declaration was also shaped by Aquinas and the whole of the Catholic intellectual tradition.  And so, too, was America’s chosen form of government.”

[94] John Adams to John Taylor of Caroline, Virginia, 15 April 1814, in The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Vol. 6, ed. Charles F. Adams (Boston:  Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1851), 453.

[95] Wilson, Lectures on Law, Vol. 1, 308, 309.  Boldface mine

[96] Virginia Bill of Rights, 12 June 1776, in The Constitution of Virginia together with the Virginia Bill of Rights, Passed June 12, 1776 (Richmond, VA:  Printed at the Office of the New Nation, 1867), 3.

[97] Alexander Hamilton, “The Farmer Refuted, or A More Comprehensive and Impartial View of the Disputes Between Great Britain and the Colonies,” 5 February 1775, in The Works of Alexander Hamilton, Vol. 2, ed. John C. Hamilton (New York:  John F. Trow, 1850), 61.

[98] Samuel Adams, “Report on the Rights of Colonists,” Boston, 20 November 1772, in American Patriotism:  Speeches, Letters, and Other Papers which Illustrate the Foundation, Development, and Preservation of the United States of America, comp. Selim H. Peabody (New York:  American Book Exchange, 1880), 33. Boldface mine

[99] Wilson, Lectures on Law, Vol. 1, 362.  Wilson elaborates, “That liberty and equality, belonging to the individuals before the union, belong after the union to the society, which those individuals compose.  ….  Every state, therefore, composed of individuals, is a state sovereign and independent. …  States are moral persons, who live together in a natural society, under the law of nations.” (359-360)

[100] Boldface mine

[101] James Otis, The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved, 1764 (Boston:  Printed and Sold by Edes and Gill, 1764), 29.

[102] Benjamin Rush, “An Address to the Inhabitants of the British Settlements in America Upon Slave-Keeping,” 1773, in From Many, One:  Readings in American Political and Social Thought, ed. Richard C. Sinopoli (Washington, DC:  Georgetown U Press, 1997), 253.

[103] Samuel Cooke, “A Sermon Preached at Cambridge, 30 May 1770,” in The Pulpit of the American Revolution, or The Political Sermons of the Period of 1776, 2nd ed. (Boston:  D. Lothrop & Co., 1876), 182, 183.  In Romans 2:11, the Apostle Paul says, “There is no respect of persons with God.” (KJV)

[104] Bernard Bailyn, Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, Enlarged ed. (Cambridge, MA:  Belknap/Harvard U Press, 1967, 1992), 246.

[105] See Wilson, Lectures on Law, Vol. 1, 306-309; John Adams, “Defence of the Constitution of Government of the United States of America,” 1778, in The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Vol. 4, ed. Charles F. Adams (Boston:  Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1851), 397.  Civil government, the Founders saw, should be composed of the best men with the best qualities in ability and virtue.  These qualities, Adams expressed, were “essential to be considered in the institution of a government.”

[106] Thomas S. Kidd, God of Liberty:  A Religious History of the American Revolution (New York:  Basic Books, 2010), 143.

[107] Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kerchival, 12 July 1816, in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 7, ed. H. A. Washington (Washington DC:  Taylor & Maury, 1854), 11.

[108] Benjamin Rush, “Thoughts Upon Female Education,” 28 July 1787, in Essays Literary, Moral, and Philosophical, 1798, by Benjamin Rush, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia, PA:  Printed by Thomas and William Bradford, 1806), 76.

[109] Wilson, Lectures on Law, Vol. 1, 13.

[110] James Madison, “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments,” 1785, in The Writings of James Madison, Vol. 2:  1783-1787, ed. Gaillard Hunt (New York:  G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1901), 186.

[111] James Wilson, “Lectures on Law,” Vol. 2, in The Works of the Honourable James Wilson, Vol. 2, ed. Bird Wilson (Philadelphia:  Lorenzo Press, Printed for Bronson and Chauncey, 1804), 488.

[112] James Madison, Journal of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Part 2, in The Writings of James Madison, Vol. 4:  1787, ed. Gaillard Hunt (New York:  G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1903), 305-306.

[113] James Madison, Journal of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Part 1, in The Writings of James Madison, Vol. 3:  1787, ed. Gaillard Hunt (New York:  G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1902), 104.

[114] Thomas Jefferson, “Notes on the State of Virginia,” 1784, in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 8, ed. H. A. Washington (New York:  Published by Riker, Thorne, & Co., 1854), 334.

[115] Thomas Jefferson, “Notes on the State of Virginia,” 404.

[116] Rush, Address to the Inhabitants of the British Settlements in America Upon Slave-Keeping, 254.

[117] Madison, Journal of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Part 2, 266.

[118] U. S. National Archives and Records Administration, The Emancipation Proclamation, 1863, Online Exhibits, <www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/emancipation-proclamation> (last reviewed 28 January 2022) (accessed 10 November 2022); U. S. National Archives and Records Administration, Emancipation Proclamation (1863), Milestone Documents, <www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/emancipation-proclamation> (last reviewed 10 May 2022) (accessed 10 November 2022).

[119] Abraham Lincoln, “Emancipation Proclamation,” 1 January 1863, in Speeches & Letters of Abraham Lincoln, 1832-1865, ed. James Bryce (London:  J. M. Dent & Co., 1907, 1909), 204.

[120] See Bruce Feiler, America’s Prophet:  Moses and the American Story (New York:  William Morrow, 2009), 143, 154.  In the King James Version (KJV), Genesis 12:16 says that Abraham acquired in Egypt “menservants” and “maidservants.”  Genesis 16:1 and 21:10 say that Sarah had a “handmaid” or “bondwoman.”  In Leviticus 25:44, God allows Israel to acquire “bondmen” and “bondmaids” from surrounding heathen nations.  In 1 Corinthians 7:21-24, Paul instructs Christian “servants” to “abide with God” in the state of servanthood if they are not freed.  In Ephesians 6:5, Paul instructs “servants” to obey their masters.

[121] See Feiler, America’s Prophet, 150-157.

[122] KJV

[123] Abraham Lincoln to H. L. Pierce and others, 6 April 1859, in Letters and Addresses of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Mary Maclean (New York:  A. Wessels Co., 1907), 141; Abraham Lincoln, “Address in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, February 22, 1861,” in Speeches & Letters of Abraham Lincoln, 1832-1865, ed. James Bryce (London:  J. M. Dent & Co., 1907, 1909), 163.

[124] Abraham Lincoln, “A Speech Delivered in reply to Sen. Stephen A. Douglas at Peoria, Illinois, 16 October 1854,” in Letters and Addresses of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Mary Maclean (New York:  A. Wessels Co., 1907), 75.

[125] New King James Version (NKJV)

[126] Abraham Lincoln, “Fragment on the Constitution and the Union,” January 1861, in Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 4., ed. Roy P. Basler et al. (New Brunswick, NJ:  Rutgers U Press, 1953), 168-169.  Boldface mine

[127] Allen C. Guelzo, Abraham Lincoln as a Man of Ideas (Carbondale, IL:  Southern Illinois U Press, 2009, 2017), 106.

[128] Abraham Lincoln, “Speech on the Dred Scott Decision,” 26 June 1857, in Speeches & Letters of Abraham Lincoln, 1832-1865, ed. James Bryce (London:  J. M. Dent & Co., 1907, 1909), 66.

[129] Abraham Lincoln, “Address in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, February 22, 1861,” in Speeches & Letters of Abraham Lincoln, 1832-1865, ed. James Bryce (London:  J. M. Dent & Co., 1907, 1909), 163.

[130] Abraham Lincoln, “Address at the Dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, November 19, 1863,” in Speeches & Letters of Abraham Lincoln, 1832-1865, ed. James Bryce (London:  J. M. Dent & Co., 1907, 1909), 213.  Boldface mine

[131] Tony Williams, “An Apple of God in a Picture of Silver,” 7 August 2020, Law & Liberty (Liberty Fund, 2022), <https://lawliberty.org/book-review/an-apple-of-gold-in-a-picture-of-silver/> (accessed 11 November 2022).  Williams reviews Lucas Morel’s Lincoln and the American Founding.

[132] Abraham Lincoln, “Reply to Committee of Colored People of Baltimore Who Presented Him with a Bible,” 7 September 1864, in The Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 2, eds. John G. Nicolay and John Hay (New York:  Century Co., 1894), 574.

[133] Francis B. Carpenter, Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln:  The Story of a Picture (New York:  Hurd and Houghton, 1866), 282.  Carpenter was an American artist who was commissioned and resided at the White House when Lincoln was president.  Six Months was Carpenter’s published memoir.

[134] Abraham Lincoln, “Fragment of a Speech Delivered at a Republican Banquet in Chicago,” 10 December 1856, in Letters and Addresses of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Mary Maclean (New York:  A. Wessels Co., 1907), 95.  Boldface mine

[135] Carpenter, Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln, 90.

[136] Bruce Feiler, America’s Prophet:  Moses and the American Story (New York:  William Morrow, 2009), 162.

[137] In Genesis 3:19, after the Fall of Adam and Eve, God says to Adam, “In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, Till you return to the ground.”  In Matthew 7:1, Jesus tells His followers, “Judge not, that you be not judged.” (NKJV)

[138] In Matthew 18:7, Jesus tells His disciples, “Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes!” (NKJV)

[139] On malice toward none, the Apostle Paul in Colossians 3:8 instructs the church to “put off all these: anger, wrath, malice.”  On charity for all, Paul commends the church in Philemon 1:4-5 for their “love and faith which you have…toward all the saints” and in 2 Thessalonians 1:3 “because the love of every one of you all abounds toward each other.”  On binding the nation’s wounds, Psalm 147:3 states, “He [God] heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”  On caring for widows and orphans, the Apostle James in James 1:27 instructs believers “to visit orphans and widows in their trouble.” (NKJV)

—————

Contributed by AHEF and Angela E. Kamrath.

This article is available as a printable PDF handout in the member resources section on americanheritage.org.  Simply sign up and login as a member (no cost), go to the resources page, and look under Miracle of America articles.

Source for more information:  Kamrath, Angela E.  The Miracle of America:  The Influence of the Bible on the Founding History and Principles of the United States of America for a People of Every Belief.  Third Edition.  Houston, TX:  American Heritage Education Foundation, 2014, 2015, 2020.  Third Edition (2020) is available!

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35.  The American Defense of Unalienable Rights in the Declaration 
36.  When the People Rule:  The Principle of Popular Sovereignty in the Declaration and Constitution
37.  The American Social Contract in the Declaration and Constitution
38.  The Principle, Practice, and Morality of a Constitutional Republic in America
39. The Principles of Limited Government and Separation of Powers in the U. S. Constitution
40. The Covenant-Inspired Principle of Federalism in the U. S. Constitution
41.  An Introduction to Rule of Law in the Constitution
42.  Unabridged:  The Moral Dimension of Rule of Law in the U. S. Constitution
43.  A Brief Overview:  The Moral Dimension of Rule of Law in the U. S. Constitution
44.  The Bible-Inspired Influences on the U. S. Constitution and Bill of Rights
45.  The Purpose of American Civil Government


High School Teaching Activity – Drawing Key Understandings/Answering Key Questions on Equality

Activity/Source:  The Miracle of America High School Teacher Course Guide, Unit 7, Part 2, Activity 1:  Drawing Key Understandings/Answering Key Questions, p. 247, 251-252.  MS-HS.  See member resources at americanheritage.org.

Purpose/Objective:  Students learn key principles of the United States Constitution including a self-governing constitutional republic, why Americans saw a republic as the best form of government for the nation, and how influential thinkers and early Americans connected this concept with the Bible.

Required Reading:
-Kamrath, Angela E., The American Principle of Equality in the Declaration, 2022 December 7, on The Founding Blog (Houston, TX:  American Heritage Education Foundation, 2017-present), www.thefounding.net.

Suggested Reading: 
-Miracle of America book/text.  Students read sections 1.1-1.3, 2.4, 3.10, 5.1-5.5, 5.13, 5.14, 6.4, 6.5, 7.2, 7.3, 7.11, 7.16, 8.6, 8.7, 8.14, 8.19.
-“Popular Sovereignty” sub-section, in Principles of the Declaration of Independence essay, in Miracle of America HS Teacher Course Guide, pp. 363-364.

Questions and Answers:  Teachers may wish to have students answer some of the Key Understanding Qs in the Miracle Course Guide.  Additional, more focused key questions include:
1.  How or in what ways did the American Founders view all men as equal?  (Students should consider the Founders’ view of men as equal not in abilities, character, traits, or merits but before God the Creator.  Thus men are equal in natural rights and under law.)
2.  What is an important philosophical and biblical basis for man’s equality in the Western world?  Give specific scriptures when applicable. (Students should consider man’s common origin, nature, dominion, and moral responsibility in classical and Bible-based, Judeo-Christian thought.)
3.  How did the Protestant Reformation and the American Puritans’ views of the church contribute to civil equality in America?  (Students should consider the Protestant view of the church in which all the members have spiritual power, ministry function, and role as priests.  The Puritans applied their church practices to their civil practices, seeing citizens as equal, starting with the Mayflower Compact.)
4.  Explain the early Americans’ argument for independence from Britain in terms of man’s equality.  (Students should consider how man’s equality leads to man’s natural rights, proper representation, and equality among other nations).
5.  Describe some of the struggles that colonists and early Americans faced in the practice of equality.  (Students should consider the practice of slavery.  Many Americans were dependent on slaves for crop labor, but many believed slavery violated man’s natural rights and the Law of Nature.)
6.  How did the idea of man’s equality as expressed in the Declaration impact America’s history, its leaders, and the American Civil War?  (Students should consider how Americans disagreed about the morality and right to own slaves which led to the Civil War; how Lincoln believed slavery was a moral evil that violated the Declaration, the Law of Nature, and man’s natural rights and thus led the fight against slavery; and how Americans amended the U. S. Constitution after the Civil War to align with the Declaration and to make slavery illegal.)

To download this whole unit in the course guide, sign up as an AHEF member (no cost) to access the “resources” page on americanheritage.org.  To order the printed binder format of the course guide with all the units, go to the AHEF bookstore.

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