All this has additional force, when it is known that this very axiom or self-evident truth declared by our fathers was the real issue of the war, and was so publicly announced by the leaders on both sides. Behind the embattled armies were ideas, and the idea on our side was Equality in Rights, which on the other side was denied. The Nation insisted that all men are created equal; the Rebellion insisted that all men are created unequal. Here the evidence is explicit.
The inequality of men was an original postulate of Mr. Calhoun,[174] which found final expression in the open denunciation of the self-evident truth as “a self-evident lie.”[175] Echoing this denunciation, Jefferson Davis, on leaving the Senate, January 21, 1861, in that farewell speech which some among you heard, but which all may read in the “Globe,” made the issue in these words:--
“It has been a belief that we are to be deprived in the Union of the rights which our fathers bequeathed to us, which has brought Mississippi into her present decision. _She has heard proclaimed the theory that all men are created free and equal, and this made the basis of an attack upon her social institutions; and the sacred Declaration of Independence has been invoked to maintain the position of the equality of the races._”[176]
The issue thus made by the chief Rebel was promptly joined. Abraham Lincoln, the elected President, stopping at Independence Hall, February 22d, on his way to assume his duties at the National capital, in unpremeditated words thus interpreted the Declaration:--
“It was that which gave promise that in due time the weight should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, _and that all should have an equal chance_.”
Mark, if you please, the simplicity of this utterance. All are to have “an equal chance”; and this, he said, “is the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence.” Then, in reply to Jefferson Davis, he proceeded:--
“Now, my friends, can this country be saved upon that basis? If it can, I shall consider myself one of the happiest men in the world, if I can help to save it. If it cannot be saved upon that principle, it will be truly awful. But if this country cannot be saved without giving up that principle, I was about to say I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it.”