At first, the “self-evident” truth that “all men are created equal” was essentially a noble-sounding idea with little connection to the reality of its era. 

Any truly revolutionary socio-political idea, such as “all men are created equal,” takes a long time to be completely accepted. 

If the U.S. had not gone through a civil war, real equality for black Americans would never have been achieved. 

The slaveholders who signed the Declaration of Independence had no idea at the time that they would one day lose their slaves because of that document. 

Because it included the idea that “all men are created equal,” the Declaration of Independence was transformed from an essentially meaningless document into a symbol of justice and social progress.