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.”
Giving these words still further solemnity, he added:
“I have said nothing but what I am willing to live by, and, if
it be the pleasure of Almighty God, to die by.”
And then, before raising the national banner over the historic Hall, he
said:--
“It is on such an occasion as this that we can reason together,
and reaffirm our devotion to the country and the principles of
the Declaration of Independence.”[177]
Thus the gauntlet flung down by Jefferson Davis was taken up by Abraham
Lincoln, who never forgot the issue.
The rejoinder was made by Alexander H. Stephens, Vice-President of the
Rebellion, in a not-to-be forgotten speech at Savannah, March 21, 1861,
when he did not hesitate to declare of the pretended Government, that--
“Its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon _the
great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man_.”