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Abraham Lincoln’s evolving appreciation of the declaration of independence

ABSTRACT A scholarly consensus has emerged in recent years that the Declaration of Independence was the “apple of gold” in Abraham Lincoln’s anti-slavery political thought and moral grounding. Prior to Congress’s passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, however, he had mentioned the document only twice, and in his Peoria Address of October 1854, he referred to it as “the white man’s charter of freedom.” This essay traces Lincoln’s evolving rhetorical use of the document, culminating during his presidency as justification for fundamental change in the nation’s history.