Examples of this use of the Declaration abound. “And now my virtuous fellow citizens, let me entreat you, that, after you have rid yourselves of the British yoke, that you will also emancipate those who have been all their life time subject to bondage.”White abolitionists and other opponents of slavery also made use of the Declaration in their legal and rhetorical assaults on human bondage. “It was repeatedly declared in Congress, as language and sentiment of all these States, and by other public bodies of men, ‘that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,’” wrote the pseudonymous author Crito (after the ancient Athenian companion of Socrates) in 1787. “The Africans, and the blacks in servitude among us, were really as much included in these assertions as ourselves,” he continued. “And if we have not allowed them to enjoy these unalienable rights, we are guilty of a ridiculous, wicked contradiction and inconsistence.”

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Persons: Alexander Tsesis, “, David Brion Davis, Lemuel Haynes, ” Haynes, Great Britain ” —, Whig ” —, ”, ’ ”, Crito, Socrates Organizations: Congregational, Affairs of America, Whig Locations: Vermont, Independence, Great Britain