The Declaration of Independence was not written by free men with no vision for the slaves in our society -- far from it . . . . ..

Editor's notes: we came across this op-ed in the NY Times, a defense of Robert Byrd, by some fellow named Frank Rich --- a lib, of course --- and one of the poorest historical statements ever made about the Declaration of Independence. Libs of the Socialist order, have little understanding of the history of this country or any of its founding documents. These opening remarks serve as an illustration of this very point:

(Frank Rich) ALL men may be created equal, but slavery, America’s original sin of inequality, was left unaddressed in the Declaration of Independence signed 234 years ago today. Of all the countless attempts to dispel that shadow over the nation’s birth, few were more ambitious than the hard-fought bill Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law just in time for another Fourth of July, 46 summers ago. . . . . READ MORE >>>

Rich glibly reminds us that the Declaration announces that all men are created equal and then moves on to assert that the Framers left unaddressed, in this wonderful document, the disgusting fact of slavery. How Rich misses the point of the opening lines of the Declaration is beyond this writer. Without that opening charge, "all men are created equal," slavery may have never been defeated and the ignorant bias of men such as the young Robert Byrd, may have been left unchecked as the rule of law.

In point of historical fact, we rather believe that the ills of slavery (whether political or physical) were the primary motivation for these opening words:

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."

Understand that no other nation on earth --- throughout the history of mankind -- has ever codified such a notion, using it as the starting point for the writing of its laws and the motivation of its social experiment. The fantasy of the Leftist neo-historians such as Frank Rich that this nation was built upon short sighted platitudes and an aggressive, in humane, expansionist move to capture the wild, wild West misses the point of the Declaration of Independence.

Certainly, we have acted poorly and inhumanely but the founding principles, stated as clearly and succinctly as possible, are the very thoughts that allowed for correction, the conversion of hateful biases, and the righting of social wrongs -- ala the Civil War. . . . . . . something Frank Rich either forgot about or, somehow, feels was not the quintessential and magnanimous social battle for freedom that it was.

In the Civil War, we have a nation falling on its own sword, experiencing the deaths of nearly as many of its citizens as were killed during WWII - over 500,000 losing their lives in a battle over the continuation of the Declaration's promise to all who come to our shores, for whatever reason, that freedom and the opportunity for prosperity be allowed as a individual endeavor and a blessing from the Creator.

Know this: because freedom is of the Creator, it exists outside ourselves and must not be legislated as a result.

From the very beginnings of our nation, the opening words of the Declaration of Independence were met for all of its citizens and while some refused to admit to this self-evident truth, in the end, and long before the Civil Rights bill of 1966, the discussion raged and social justice was being achieved. We must never forget that " . . . . all . . . have been created equal . . . . " is the very reason for the Civil Rights Act of 1966, the defeat of the KKK and the Byrd Bias, the Civil War and the great debate that existed from Day One of this country's beginnings.

Indeed, it borders of "stupid" for one to claim that slavery was ignored in the founding documents of this great nation. Understand this: if the founding of this nation had been the product of the current crop of pundits and antagonists, nothing even close to the Declaration would have been written, the 1st, 2nd, 9th, 10th amendments would have been omitted and we, the people, would not have shared in the prosperity of the past 234 years and this thing we call personal freedom ---- jds.
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