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quently an inequality of age follows; to say nothing of the diverse and ever varying contingencies occurring to man in despite of the most careful safeguards.
In conclusion of my remarks on this part of the subject, there is one point of negative testimony, which I admit, so far as it goes, favors the supposition, that the declaration under review is self-evident. It is this. What is self-evident, cannot be shown to be true, by demonstration clearer than itself. I allow therefore, the expression "all men are created equal," to be self-evident, if evident at all; for it is clearly incapable of any proof whatever.
The second truth affirmed to be self-evident is expressed thus—"that they (i.e. all men) are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
To alien, is to dispose of, part with, put away. What is unalienable, is what cannot be disposed of, parted with, or put away, either by the possessor, or by any one else: for if it can, it ceases to be unalienable. Life is affirmed to be one of these possessions. If it were true that no man could alienate (dispose of) his own life or any one's else, it would prove an immense comfort to braggarts. They could parade their patriotism and bravery without serious risk. Wars too, would cease to be attended with those losses, which have hitherto been accounted their chief terror. For myself I had supposed that life was alienable: and I apprehend the author of the very sentence under remark, thought so; for before he closes this famous declaration, he pledges his "life," among other things. To pledge what one cannot dispose of, amounts to no higher virtue, than to give away what one does not own. If life were unalienable, the pledge so souorously paraded at the close of the Declaration, would be as worthless as a Virginia abstraction, or an abstract Virginian.
Moreover, if life is unalienable, there can be no more evidence of true patriotism. No man can part with his, for the good of his country. The Declaration that contains the self-evident truth that life was unalienable, was published the 4th July, 1776. The battle of Bunker Hill, where Warren, and many brave warriors had alienated their lives for the benefit of their country, had taken place in June, of the previous year. Montgomery also, with his
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