The Empire State Rare Book and Print Fair

Empire State Rare Book and Print Fair exhibitor Seth Kaller will present his non-profit's exhibition The Promise of Liberty. The exhibition is included with entry to the fair.

When the Signers of the Declaration of Independence proclaimed the self-evident truth, that all men are created equal, they were not delusional. They knew those words described an aspiration, not a reality. Still, they put their lives on the line for the novel idea that a government should exist for the benefit of its citizens rather than its rulers. 

Today, we are all too aware of the shortcomings and failures and injustice in our history. Even the most progressive of the Founders were blinded by the limitations of their experience and prejudices of their day, profited from slavery and could not imagine women as equals. Yet they

presciently saw that our nation’s success and security depended on an expansive view of universal natural rights.

Liberty and governance always involve balancing acts. People today who think that history is boring, or that “both sides are corrupt” and politics doesn’t matter should consider this: our government was designed not for a particular moment or as history, but as an ever-improving technology—a system for applying knowledge to solve problems. Constitutional democracy is never easy and will never be perfect—but it remains the best technology ever devised to

address issues of governance and society.

The Founders operated in uncharted territory, while we have history on our side. After more than two centuries of accumulated experience and wisdom, we can see that America’s most exceptional accomplishment was making E Pluribus Unum happen. The creation of the American Tapestry —with the contributions of people of all abilities, colors, classes, castes, creeds, genders, places of origin, races, religions, sexes, and walks of life—is what made America great. Out of Many,

One is more than a motto on our money—it is America’s unique value proposition.

Our nation was designed to be a perpetual work in progress. Thus, our Constitution is more than the Constitution of 1787. Our Founding documents include not just the Declaration and Constitution and Bill of Rights, but amendments abolishing slavery, providing equal protection of the law,

expanding voting rights and more. Our Founders include Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, and Martin Luther King, Jr. That list will continue to expand as America’s founding documents are still being written.

Our vision is to use authentic history as a way to draw attention to America’s First Principles and Aspirations, and an inspiration to people today as a living beacon of democracy.

The original documents and artifacts in The Promise of Liberty were gathered to showcase the evolution of ideas set forth in our Founding documents. To me, their value is not based on the past, or rarity, or monetary value, but on the guidance this history can offer us now and in the future.

In 2026, the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we will showcase this exhibit around the country, and hope it will someday become the foundation of a permanent new Museum For Democracy. This can be a new platform for understanding and advancing the American Constitutional Experiment and liberty and democracy around the world.

Today, Washington’s message can and should be applied not just to the narrow question of antisemitism. The vision captured in this letter can push us to go beyond tolerance not only religion but in all subjects of discrimination.

“All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support ...”.

Even Washington, among the most progressive of the Founders, was shaped by the prejudices of his day. He profited from slavery, and could not imagine women as equals. Today, all too aware of our Founders’ failures and hypocrisy, why should we still value slaveowners’ proclamations of liberty? Because their words presciently envision a nation based on an expansive view of universal natural rights.

★ Abraham Lincoln Document Signed, January 1, 1863 [printed and signed in 1864]. ★ First State Department printing. ★ First day newspaper printing.

“I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves ... are, and henceforward shall be free ...” A key facet of Lincoln’s genius was his ability to inspire as broadly as possible but act as narrowly as necessary—threading needle after needle before anyone could begin to see a tapestry. By excluding border states (that had not seceded) and areas back under Union military control, he relied on the doctrine of military necessity to help the Proclamation survive Supreme Court challenges.

The most revolutionary part of the document is often overlooked: “And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages....”

We see this as Lincoln’s answer to the most notorious part of the 1857 Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, where Chief Justice Taney’s majority opinion went so far as to declare that blacks, “regarded as beings of an inferior order,” had “no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” Rather than showing Lincoln patronizingly telling freed slaves to behave themselves, this is his announcement that black men and women, until then treated solely as chattel, could now legally act in their own self-defense, and maintain their bodily integrity.

Martin Luther King, Jr., Advance Text mimeographed by the March on Washington press office, August 28, 1963.

“When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir-- It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check ... But ... we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation ...”

Officially Dr. King had a 5-minute slot for his speech, However, privately, Rustin and Randolph agreed that King could go longer. Watching different films of the speech, we can see that Dr. King was “on script,” frequently glancing down to the advance text until he arrived at the last paragraph. Just then, whether he consciously heard it or not, Mahalia Jackson called out, “Tell them about the dream, Martin.” At that moment, hardly pausing, he looked up and launched into “I Have a Dream.” He didn’t look down again until nearly ten minutes later, when he returned to the advanced text to finish delivering what became one of the most consequential and famous speeches in American history.

“Let us work and march and love and stand together until that day has come when we can join hands and sing, ‘Free at last, free at last; thank God almighty, we are free at last.’”