✍️ They Wrote a Universal Principle. They Didn’t Live It.

What one sentence still demands of us

We often think of the American Founders as either stainless heroes or complete hypocrites. The truth, as historian Walter Isaacson argues, is more complicated. They were enlightened enough to dream of a world where everyone was equal but not courageous enough to build it.

Today, the second sentence in the Declaration of Independence remains both our greatest pride and our loudest wake-up call. I was reminded of that power while reading Isaacson’s concise, 41-page study, The Greatest Sentence Ever Written.

He writes about this famous sentence:

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.

Drafted by Thomas Jefferson and edited by Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, it became the moral creed that bound a diverse group of colonies into one nation. For people with many different beliefs and backgrounds, it defined our common ground and the American Dream.

Many of us know that sentence by heart, but we may not fully appreciate its profound wisdom. For the 250^th birthday of the Declaration that founded the United States, Isaacson analyzes and celebrates, word by word, how that sentence was crafted, what it truly means, and how we can honor, in these troubled times, its underlying values.

To aid my understanding, I studied each short chapter, wondering how to summarize the essence of each word or phrase into one clear sentence:

We
“We” shifts authority from rulers to the people themselves, grounding the argument for independence in collective moral judgment rather than inherited power.

Self-evident truths
By calling the principles “self-evident,” Jefferson frames them as conclusions any rational person can recognize, not ideas that need approval from church or king.

All men
Though limited in practice in 1776, the sweeping phrasing sets a standard that applies to everyone, everywhere, always — one that future generations can and must expand.

Created equal
Equality is presented as a starting condition of human existence, not a reward for status, wealth, race or virtue.

Endowed by their Creator
Rights are anchored above government authority — grounded in nature or a higher power without naming a specific faith — so no earthly power can claim ownership over them.

Certain unalienable Rights
These rights are inherent and can’t be taken away or surrendered, which makes tyranny not simply wrong but also illegitimate.

Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness
That trio defines human flourishing as existence, freedom, and the ability to seek meaning and fulfillment without state interference.

Isaacson then applies the two ideals at the heart of the Declaration: common ground and the pursuit of the American Dream.

Common ground
The sentence succeeds because it speaks in language broad enough to unite people with different beliefs around shared principles.

The American Dream
Over time, the sentence becomes both a goal we’re still trying to reach and a measuring stick, defining the national promise while exposing the nation’s failures to live up to it.

And he concludes by turning reflection into responsibility.

Going forward
The enduring power of the sentence lies in its demand that each generation reinterpret and expand its promise, using its universal language not as nostalgia but as a mandate for continued moral progress.

But thinking back, I recall learning about our country’s founders during the U.S. history classes I loved in grade school, junior high, and high school. And of the three authors of the Declaration, Jefferson continues to pop up in other books and articles I read. After reading this book, I want to learn more about Franklin, who appears in my memory mostly as an eccentric publisher and inventor.

I was impressed by how enlightened all three founders were, in differing ways, in turning lofty ideas into functional goals (as with “all men” and “created equal”). They were influenced by Enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau — names we often recognize from history books but rarely connect to everyday civic life.

That said, I wondered: Were the founders truly enlightened about “all men” and “created equal”? Or is Isaacson putting an optimistic face on reality in 1776 that was not inclusive?

The short answer: They had visionary ideas but lived old-fashioned lives. And Isaacson leans toward generosity in interpretation — though not naïveté.

First, their ideas were genuinely radical.
When Jefferson wrote “all men are created equal,” he was drawing from philosophers who argued that political authority rests on natural rights, not monarchy or bloodline. In 1776, that idea challenged the right of kings to rule.

Second, they knew the words were bigger than their world.
Jefferson owned enslaved people. Adams did not. Franklin evolved and became an abolitionist. But none of them proposed immediate universal equality in 1776. The phrase was a principle, not a practical, everyday rule.

Third, “all men” was not accidental.
In 18th-century political language, “men” often meant “humankind,” but socially it absolutely excluded women, enslaved people, Native Americans, and non-property holders. That exclusion was real. No sugarcoating it.

So, was Isaacson overly optimistic?

Not exactly, but he emphasizes something important:

The power of the sentence lies in its lack of qualifiers. It doesn’t say “all white men,” “all property-owning men,” or “all Christian men.” Once equality is stated universally, later generations can use it as a tool to fight injustice. And they did.

Frederick Douglass invoked it, Abraham Lincoln treated it as the moral core of the Union, Elizabeth Cady Stanton echoed it at Seneca Falls, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called it a promissory note — a check that hasn’t been cashed yet.

That’s not Isaacson spinning history. That’s historical fact: The sentence became a moral standard used against the nation’s own hypocrisy.

Here’s the honest bottom line:

Were the founders personally inclusive by modern standards?
No.

Did they write a principle that undermined the exclusions they tolerated?
Yes.

That tension is the story of America.

The founders were enlightened enough to articulate a universal principle.
They were not courageous — or unified — enough to apply it universally.

And that’s why the sentence still matters. It doesn’t let anyone off the hook. Not them. Not us.

In an era when equality, rights, and citizenship are debated daily, the sentence still asks a simple question: Who counts?

Final thought

The authors of the Declaration did not live up to their own standard, but they wrote a standard that future generations could use to demand better.

And here’s the forward-looking part — the part that matters:
The real test isn’t whether they were perfect in 1776.
It’s whether we are brave enough to widen the circle in 2026.

That work doesn’t belong to the founders anymore. It belongs to us.

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