A promise, a step in the right direction, but…

Riffing off an unknown online poster a few days back: June 30, 1776 — A House United, But Not All Free Two hundred and fifty years ago today, as the Continental Congress debated Thomas Jefferson’s draft Declaration of Independence, it removed one of its most controversial passages. As the old saying goes, “if you like sausage, don’t watch it being made.” Politics is even worse, as this goes on to explain.

Jefferson had written a fierce condemnation of the transatlantic slave trade, calling it an “execrable commerce” and accusing King George III of violating the rights of humanity by permitting it to continue. He charged that the king had “waged cruel war against human nature itself,” depriving innocent people of their “most sacred rights of life and liberty” by capturing and transporting them into slavery. Implicit in the passage was the revolutionary principle that those enslaved Africans possessed the same natural rights as all other people—a principle that would soon be echoed in the Declaration’s assertion that “all men are created equal.”

The problem was much the same as we have today: Americans, whether in 13 “colonies” or 50 States, were really no more united in 1776 than we are in 2026. Despite later accusations regarding Jefferson’s morality, he was expressing a godly sentiment in this matter. And challenging both those who believed that people of other “races” were either inferior to good English (and maybe Irish and Scots and European) folks, or even that those “people of color” were not even human. (As if pink is not a color, and need we be reminded that AmerInd tribal members, like tribal people around the world through most of history, believed that they and their tribe were the only “real humans.” But read on!

Yet Jefferson’s draft never directly confronted the institution of slavery within the colonies themselves. Instead, after condemning the slave trade, it shifted to criticizing the Crown for encouraging enslaved people to flee their masters and join British forces—an unmistakable reference to Lord Dunmore’s 1775 proclamation in Virginia. Dunmore’s offer intensified colonial anxieties: thousands of enslaved people saw a possible path to freedom, while slaveholders feared upheaval, economic loss, and the unraveling of the existing social order. For many in the South, those fears helped drive support for the Patriot cause.

And as it almost always happens in human government, money trumps morality and justice. It wasn’t until 1887 that Acton wrote “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” but the principle was well known in 1776 – and even back 400 years before Christ. Fortunately, in those days, when the soon-to-be FedGov didn’t try to micromanage everything, at least some States quickly moved to end the evil of slavery, and even the FedGov tried to end manstealing (the slave trade).

Even Jefferson’s limited criticism proved too much. Delegates from South Carolina and Georgia objected, and others feared the issue would fracture colonial unity at the very moment independence hung in the balance. Congress understood the contradiction between proclaiming universal natural rights while tolerating slavery, but it could not reconcile the two. Rather than address slavery within the colonies, it removed the passage entirely.

As we pointed out earlier, 1776 exhibited as divided an American union as we have today: the still relatively new coalition was far too fragile to really push. And we know that fragility finally led to a massive fracture in 1861, just decades later. These Founding Fathers were really amazing. Do you think that a similar group from the Fifty States today could come anywhere close to what they did.

Days later, Congress approved the words that became the nation’s creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” The contradiction remained unresolved. Independence required unity, and many believed raising the slavery question would endanger the cause of creating a new nation.

But the seed had been planted. And “amen” to that! We still need to plant such seeds today. Seeds of liberty, seeds of truth.

The Declaration’s promise of equality would take deep root in American life, inspiring future generations to ask whether the nation truly lived up to its own ideals. The tension between liberty and slavery would grow more difficult to ignore, creating what Lincoln later called “a house divided,” and testing whether that nation, so conceived, could long endure. It was left to later generations to be dedicated to the unfinished work of those who signed the Declaration.

Which, of course, has largely been completed, though we fear that a lot of progress has been negated in the last two decades. Thanks to those who in large part want to destroy American unity, and peace. And restore the usual human conditions of tyranny and servitude, incredible wealth and incredible poverty. Modern enemies of liberty conveniently forget that more and more Americans, through the centuries, have fought those evils.

And that’s the way it was, June 30, 1776. And we need to remember that 250 years later, and learn from their lessons. And our own.

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