Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, understood the principles Jefferson defined in the Declaration of Independence and acted upon. Before his election to the presidency, Lincoln spoke about the principles of Jefferson and tried to convince others to return to those principles. In 1858, Lincoln spoke in Lewistown, Illinois about this matter. One of the principles established the truth that the Founders designed a system, not for property-owning, rich, white men, but for all humanity. Lincoln said that Jefferson “established these great self-evident truths that when in the distant future some man, some faction, some interest, should set upon the doctrine that none but rich men, or none but white men, were entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity might look up again to the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began. … Now, my countrymen, if you have been taught doctrines conflicting with the great landmarks of the Declaration of Independence; if you have listened to suggestions which would take away from its grandeur and mutilate the fair symmetry of its proportions; if you have been inclined to believe that all men are not created equal in those inalienable rights enumerated by our charter of liberty; let me entreat you to come back. … [C]ome back to the truths that are in the Declaration of Independence.”

— Chapter 2, pp 26-27