"For the first time in history, a great war was fought to end slavery. 300,000 Northern soldiers died in that war. They died to secure for the slaves a freedom that the slaves were not in the position to secure for themselves. Even the Civil Rights Movement was not a break with the American founding. [...] Where did Martin Luther King get his 'promissory note'? Not from the segregationists. He got it from the Declaration of Independence. It was the American founding that established the principles that made possible the success of the Civil Rights Movement."