OPINION:
The Rev. Martin Luther King reminded the country that the Declaration of Independence was a promissory note to which every American becomes an heir. To cash that note, he led the fight for the 1964 Civil Rights Act, giving preeminence to personal liberties as enshrined at our founding. Only through exercising and respecting personal freedom can King’s dream of a symphony of brotherhood be realized.
The philosophical doctrines supporting Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence celebrated on July 4 placed master and slave on the same natural plain of existence in 1776. All became defined as sovereign individuals, finding their identity in exercising pre-existing, intangible liberties accompanied by the hazards and uncertainties of personal freedom. This declaration doomed for this country the slavery which had so long dominated economic activity worldwide.
But subsequent generations of politicians engaged in all the vices, follies and infirmities expected of fragile humanity as they debated and implemented policies accommodating trade, fisheries, agriculture, transportation and mining amid speculative fevers.
Such politicians then blundered us into the Civil War, and for 1,500 days Americans killed Americans until over 700,000 had died in battles, hospitals and prisons. But this national catastrophe did not prompt consideration of first principles, as Black Americans would find freedom a precious talisman lacking instructions and protections for the future.
A hundred years later, we still needed King’s leadership to demand attention on intangible, natural, personal liberties as the essence of freedom.
NOLAN NELSON
Redmond, Oregon
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