The Reading Room
A source
We Hold These Truths
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.
The most consequential sentence in American English, and a claim, not a description. The truths were not self-evident in 1776, when most of the world was ruled by kings and much of the country held people in bondage. Jefferson wrote them as self-evident anyway, as a standard the country would have to grow toward. Equality here is a premise to be honored, not a fact already achieved. The whole later history of the republic is the argument over who the all in all men includes, and the answer has only ever been expanded by demand.