In 1776, a congress of colonials declared they had had enough of kings and priests claiming divine right over their lives. Rights come from the Creator, governments exist by consent, and their purpose is to secure life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The founders knew slavery was immoral, but lacked a political mechanism to end it without fracturing the fragile union. They compromised, hoping the ideals would eventually outgrow the inherited sin. That tension became the engine of America’s long, painful self-correction.

The mechanism arrived through the Second Great Awakening. Americans taught to read from the Bible took the founders’ words seriously. Devout Christians led the abolitionist charge. It took a terrible Civil War to end legal slavery. The ideals had outstripped the compromise. Progress continued unevenly. Virginia Randolph and Inez Milholland, among other educators and suffragettes, helped secure the vote. Jesse Owens, the Tuskegee Airmen, Martin Luther King Jr., and countless others pushed the Overton window until America became the most tolerant, diverse nation on earth, precisely because no one is born to rule above a vote. Public servants must ask for another try every two, four, or six years.