One Radical Sentence

The grievances made the legal case. But the Declaration's lasting power sits in one sentence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

• In 1776, no government on Earth was built on that idea
• It drew on John Locke's philosophy of natural rights
• Jefferson swapped Locke's "property" for "the pursuit of happiness" — a deliberate, broader claim
• He echoed George Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights, finished just weeks earlier

Liberation movements have leaned on that line ever since, from the French Revolution to the American civil rights movement.