Constitutional Conversations

• Publication year: 2024
• Citation: Vol. 47 No. 4

Constitutional ConversationsVol. 47 No. 4 Pg. 44Wyoming Bar JournalAugust 2024

David Gray Adler

The Declaration of Independence: Celebrating and Redeeming its Solemn Promises

The Declaration of Independence, which Abraham Lincoln referred to as the "sheet anchor of the Republic," set forth the proposition, as he said in the Gettysburg Address, that "the United States was conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal" The principle of equality, Lincoln admitted, was "aspirational." Its implementation would await America's political maturation, that moment when the societal, cultural and political forces would accept the legalization of racial equality. There was no invisible hand that would push the nation across the finish line. As with all great changes in a democracy, leadership was required.

For Republicans, the Reconstruction Amendments were seen as a means of removing the exceptions to liberty and equality that were inflicted on the nation by the slavery provisions in the Constitution.

David Gray Adler is President of The Alturas Institute, a non-profit organization created to advance American Democracy by promoting the Constitution, civic education, gender equality and equal protection of the law.

The leadership of congressional Republicans, known and admired as the Radical Republicans, who envisioned...