Making America Worth Saving: Lincoln’s Empowering Reverence for the Declaration of Independence

The Lincoln Group of the District of Columbia is celebrating the 250th Anniversary of American Independence with a special panel presentation on Abraham Lincoln's devotion to the sentiments of the Declaration as the foundation of his political career. Join us on April 7, 2026 at 6 p.m. eastern time on Zoom.

The second line of the Declaration has been described as “the greatest sentence ever written.” It suggested the essence of American exceptionalism, what made this country truly different from the rest of the world. The Founders considered it a “self-evident truth” that “all men are created equal,” though it was nowhere evident in the known world of the 18^th century. American society was to be built without hereditary classes. While not all are equal in all attributes, everyone was entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The existence of slavery and the fact that only propertied, white…