What they meant was that all men, black as well as white, were equal in their inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. “This they said,” Lincoln wrote, “and this they meant.” When they drafted the Declaration, of course, they realized that not all men then enjoyed such equality. No, they were simply declaring that the right existed, that it was to follow when circumstances permitted, serving as the standard maxim of free society in the future.
Equality.
