is their
constant recurrence to broad and enduring principles, their
unremitting effort to lead public opinion to loftier and nobler
conceptions of political duty; and nothing in his career stamps him so
distinctively an American as his constant eulogy and defense of the
philosophical precepts of the Declaration of Independence. The
following is one of his indictments of his political opponents on this
point:

[Sidenote] Lincoln-Douglas Debates, p. 225.

At Galesburg the other day, I said, in answer to Judge Douglas,
that three years ago there never had been a man, so far as I knew
or believed, in the whole world, who had said that the Declaration
of Independence did not include negroes in the term "all men." I
re-assert it to-day. I assert that Judge Douglas and all his
friends may search the whole records of the country, and it will
be a matter of great astonishment to me if they shall be able to
find that one human being three years ago had ever uttered the
astounding sentiment that the term "all men" in the Declaration
did not include the negro. Do not let me be misunderstood. I know
that more than three years ago there were men who, finding this
assertion constantly in the way of their schemes to bring about
the ascendency and perpetuation of slavery, denied the truth of
it. I know that Mr. Calhoun and all the politicians of his school
denied the truth of the Declaration. I know that it ran along in
the mouth of some Southern men for a period of years, ending at
last in that shameful though rather forcible declaration of
Pettit, of Indiana, upon the floor of the United States Senate,
that the Declaration of Independence was in that respect "a
self-evident lie" rather than a self-evident truth. But I say,
with a perfect knowledge of all this hawking at the Declaration
without directly attacking it, that three years ago there never
had lived a man who had ventured to assail it in the sneaking way
of pretending to believe it and then asserting it did not include
the negro. I believe the first man who ever said it was
Chief-Justice Taney in the Dred Scott case, and the next to him
was our friend, Stephen A. Douglas. And now it has become the
catchword of the entire party. I would like to call upon his
friends everywhere to consider how they have come in so short a
time to view this matter in a wa