slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. I need not have her for
either. I can just leave her alone. In some respects she certainly is
not my equal; but in her natural right to eat the bread she earns with
her own hands without asking leave of any one else, she is my equal, and
the equal of all others.

Chief-Justice Taney, in his opinion in the Dred Scott case, admits that
the language of the Declaration is broad enough to include the whole
human family, but he and Judge Douglas argue that the authors of that
instrument did not intend to include negroes, by the fact that they did
not at once actually place them on an equality with the whites. Now this
grave argument comes to just nothing at all, by the other fact that they
did not at once, or ever afterward, actually place all white people on
an equality with one another. And this is the staple argument of both
the Chief-Justice and the Senator for doing this obvious violence to the
plain, unmistakable language of the Declaration.

I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all
men, but they did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects.
They did not mean to say all were equal in color, size, intellect,
moral developments, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable
distinctness in what respects they did consider all men created
equal--equal with "certain inalienable rights, among which are life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This they said, and this they
meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were
then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet that they were about to
confer it immediately upon them. In fact, they had no power to confer
such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that enforcement
of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit.

They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be
familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly
labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly
approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its
influence and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people
of all colors everywhere. The assertion that "all men are created equal"
was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain;
and it was placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use.
Its authors meant it to be--as, thank God, it is now proving itself--a
stumb