So we would constantly be in a state of conflict.
Cornerstone meaning free#
He had a plan for emancipation, but a plan for emancipation that would require Black people to essentially have their own country where they would be free and would meet the United States as equals from their own country because he didn't think Blacks would forgive whites for what they had done and whites would never give up their prejudices. As a young man, he had come to that conclusion. GORDON-REED: He believed that slavery was wrong. And Annette Gordon-Reed says Jefferson understood the contradiction. INSKEEP: And after the Revolution, Americans moved toward greater equality. And the declaration of equality is throwing that away or challenging that in a really truly revolutionary manner.
Those men all lived in a highly ranked culture. And before the Revolution, you entered a classroom or you entered commons to have your meal in the order of the social rank and wealth of your father. The notion even that all white men are equal is a radical idea.
But it is actually a radical vision in the 18th century. JILL LEPORE: So I think, you know, it's fashionable - and I think rightly so - to indict the limits of that vision. Historian Jill Lepore says Jefferson was also repeating an idea from Enlightenment philosophers - everyone was entitled to equal dignity. INSKEEP: The founders asserted they were equals among nations and had a right to make their own decisions. What made Jefferson want there to be equality in the document at all?ĪNNETTE GORDON-REED: It is a document that is announcing to the world that this country is going to take its place among the powers of the earth, and they want to do so on the basis of equality. Historian Annette Gordon-Reed wrote a book about the children Jefferson fathered with Sally Hemings, one of the people enslaved on his Virginia farm. INSKEEP: Thomas Jefferson and other founders wrote those words, and the country has spent 247 years debating what they mean, especially the line that all men are created equal, words the founders were not exactly living by. RACHEL MARTIN: (Reading) 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. So on this July Fourth, we hear some of the ways Americans have used the declaration since 1776. INSKEEP: But that founding document has never been the whole story. INSKEEP: The voices have ranged from the late Cokie Roberts to one of our newest program hosts, Ayesha Rascoe, who read one of the many complaints against Britain's King George.ĪYESHA RASCOE: (Reading) He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution and unacknowledged by our laws. INSKEEP: Since 1988, NPR staff members have read aloud the document that proclaimed the start of the United States.ĬOKIE ROBERTS: (Reading) We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America. Send us feedback about these examples.On this Independence Day, we hear some words we have debated since the country was founded, words that are part of our July Fourth tradition.īOB EDWARDS: (Reading) When in the course of human events. These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'cornerstone.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Callie Caplan, Dallas News, 20 June 2023 This destabilizes nuclear deterrence, without doubt the cornerstone of military competition. Joyce Banda, Fortune, 22 June 2023 No doubt the Mavericks feel fortunate to have Doncic’s relative durability as the cornerstone of the franchise’s playoff hopes. 2020 Agriculture is the cornerstone of African communities and economies. 2020 Ideally, Browne believes, these sorts of systemic concerns should form the cornerstone of treatment. 2020 European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen directly called into question the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, a cornerstone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s energy policy. 2020 But that is largely due to the Mavericks’ conservative approach to all injury returns, especially those of 25-year-old franchise cornerstone Porzingis. 2021 That building, its cornerstone laid by Minnesota Gov. Scott Huddleston, San Antonio Express-News, 15 Feb. Recent Examples on the Web All eight options would keep both east corners of the church foundation intact, including the cornerstone on the northeast.
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