Thoughts on America at 250 – Part 2 of 3

America can never be the America of our ideals without equality.

The Declaration of Independence states in part: “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. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

When Abraham Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address, he sought to preserve the Union to prove that democracy could endure. But he also spoke to give life and true meaning to those words of the Declaration of Independence, as discussed by Gary Wills in his great Pulitzer Prize-winning book Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America (Simon & Schuster 1992).

Lincoln was slain because of his work for passage of the three Civil War Amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America. The Thirteenth Amendment passed Congress during his Presidency, and he signed the Resolution, but it was not ratified until after he was taken from us. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were enacted and ratified after his death.

Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America give every person in America, not just every citizen, the rights to due process and equal protection of the laws. “[N]or shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

The Civil War Amendments did not go far enough. It took until 1920 for the 19th Amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote became law. But the Civil War Amendments tell us who we are supposed to be as free people in what should be a free country.

If we are not for each other, then America cannot be America.