Independence Day!

Some say that the brewing of the Civil War began when Americans sought freedom and independence from the British through the Revolutionary War. In a few short weeks Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence, which in its original draft, included the freedom of all. However in order to gain the support of the founding fathers, that idea was scratched yet it still encompassed the liberty and freedom beginning with the infamous first lines:

"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."


Though himself a holder of 187 slaves (including Sally Hemmings--his wife's half sister who mothered at least one of his children), Jefferson would encourage the abolition of slavery through the government. Yet still he held to the belief that blacks were in no way equal to whites. And in the event that freedom would come to them, could not exist within one government.

Jefferson's words would become the banner by which this government was founded, and the motto by which America became its own.

Gradual emancipation acts and manumissions would sweep across the northern states at a slow pace, with age contingencies and laws of discouragement and fear. Freedom for all would not be legal until the union was reinstated with the return of each southern state.