shall seem most likely to effect their safety and
happiness."

The conception of the universal right of free statehood is reached, in
the Declaration, through a series of three propositions, each stated
to be self-evident, and yet all forming a sequence. The basal
proposition is, that "all men are created equal." Rufus Choate and
John James Ingalls have declared this proposition and the succeeding
one that "all men are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness," to be "glittering generalities." Abraham Lincoln, on
the other hand, in his speech at Gettysburg, at the most solemn and
stirring moment in the country's history, declared that the
proposition that all men are created equal was the foundation-idea of
the nation, to which it was dedicated by the Fathers.

The doctrine of equality arising from the common creation of all men
as the spiritual offspring of a common Creator, was the doctrine of
the Reformation in its broadest form, as declared by Penn. Taking into
consideration the religious character of the Americans, as well as the
learning and acumen of that most remarkable body of men who
constituted the Continental Congress, it seems not only not
improbable, but probable, and indeed necessary to conclude, that the
proposition that "all men are created equal" was intended to be the
epitome of the doctrine of the Reformation, as that doctrine was
broadened by the influence of Penn and his followers. As the
Governments of Europe were at that time acting on the political
philosophy of feudalism and mediaevalism, which in its last analysis
was based on the proposition that all men are created unequal, or that
some are created equal and some unequal, the Declaration, if it be