“… all men are created equal…” is our Founding Principle. Don’t believe me. I didn’t come up with this. I have absolutely no credentials. Of course you shouldn’t believe me, you don’t know me. I’m just John Q. Simpleman.
I’m asking you to believe the Fathers of our country. I’m asking you to believe Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, Franklin, Madison, Hancock. I’m asking you to believe all the Founding Fathers. They who wrote this one statement as the first statement in our first document on our nation’s first day. The very first statement when we declared our Independence. Declaring who we are and what we stand for. Our founders all signed and presented this declaration to the world on July 4, 1776 and the first statement in that first document said, “We hold these Truths to be self- evident that all men are created equal…” The Founding Fathers proclaimed this one statement merits above all others. Declaring this is our bedrock. Our country built on this foundation. They knew the suffering which would come from this declaration. They knew the pain and the sacrifices that would surely affect all of mankind from this proposition. And yet, they thought it that important, that imperative, they placed it as the Truth we hold. They were our Founding Fathers. They believed this as our Founding Principle. They believed this Cause worth all the sacrifices to come. I’m asking you to believe our Founding Fathers. Their credentials.
Don’t believe me. It was not me who gazed out upon the blood-soaked battlefield at Gettysburg. Knowing that tens of thousands had died and suffered here. Knowing that much more of this, this right before him, was still to come, yet placed this Principle in his first paragraph of his address to this nation, in the midst of this battlefield, “… a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Abraham Lincoln believed it that important, that imperative. He believed this Principle, amidst all the grief of those honored before him burning in his very soul, worth all this. He was there. I ask you to believe him. His credentials.
I’m asking you to believe Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Whose credentials lie higher and deeper than most of us can even imagine, who dreamed, “…that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of it’s Creed: – ‘We hold these Truths to be self- evident that all men are created equal’.” Believe him. His credentials.
Don’t believe me.