Originally Posted by buggyone

I did go back and look at your post where you said you wanted the founding principles to be followed. My fault for the wrong assumption. I presume you mean, "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."

Once again, I have to bring up slavery. If the drafters of the Declaration of Independence stated that it is self-evident that all men are created equal and their Creator endowed them with unalienable rights to include Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness - how do you hold it to be self-evident if there were human slaves held by some of these people when the document was written? Slaves were not considered to be equal (3/5 of a person), and I am pretty sure a slave was not allowed his/her liberty and also pretty sure they did not get the pursuit of happiness very often.

IF the words had been backed up by the Bill of Rights instead of having to wait about 100 years to be enforced with a Constitutional Amendment, those words would have meant a lot more. In other words, words alone are not enough for a country; the words have to be backed up by the appropriate action.