Part II of a Two-Part Essay
Abraham Lincoln understood the covenantal nature of America, which he called “the electric cord.” The 16th president articulated the skeletal form of America’s cultural identity in Chicago on July 10, 1858:
We have besides these men—descended by blood from our ancestors—among us perhaps half our people who are not descendants at all of these men. They are men who have come from Europe—German, Irish, French and Scandinavian—men that have come from Europe themselves, or whose ancestors have come hither and settled here, finding themselves our equals in all things. If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us. But when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” and then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration, and so they are.
What is the basis of the American covenant? It is the creed, the “father of all moral principles” found in the Declaration of Independence:
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.
In these words lies the summation of the moral premise on which America was founded: that there is a Creator who made man with equal dignity, rights, and obligations. On this foundation our cohesive cultural identity was built and must be maintained. This is the moral law to which we as a people are subject. Without agreement on these fundamentals, we cannot hope for unity on much else.
Read the full essay at Providence Magazine.