9781422287453

41 “All Men Are Created Equal”

national cemetery established on the battlefield. The president was not expected to be the major speaker of the day so he only made a short speech. In fact, he spoke for less than three minutes. But in the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln told the audi- ence that the signers of the Declaration of Independence meant all men—whether they are white or black—are created equal, and that all Americans deserve the rights and freedoms that were put down in words on parch- ment by Thomas Jefferson just 87 years before the battle of Gettysburg. He said: “Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation: con- ceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

Text-Dependent Question Approximately how many people were living in slavery in the United States when the Civil War began in April 1861? Research Project The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1865, formally abolished slavery in the United States. Find out more about the history of this amendment at this online Library of Congress exhibit— http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/13thamendment.html.