"In its main
features the Declaration of Independence is a spiritual document. It is a
declaration not of material but spiritual conceptions. Equality,
liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man—these are not elements
which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and
their roots in religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world.
Unless the faith of the American people
in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our
Declaration will perish. We cannot continue to enjoy the result if we
neglect and abandon the cause. If all men are created equal, that is
final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If
governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed,
that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these
propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth and their soundness,
the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward,
but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of
the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that
direction cannot lay claim to progress." -- Calvin Coolidge
