"Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, etc.”

""[Jefferson's] purpose, he explained to [Henry] Lee, had been “not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent.” The Declaration’s authority, Jefferson rightly added, “rests . . . on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, etc.”""

Where is the contemporary 'Merican who has read a page of Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, or that eloquent rebel Algernon Sidney?? No-where, since ........da Wind done gone. Jefferson's not too PC these days given the Hemmings affair (Miss Sally was at least 1/2 caucasian anyway), but it should be noted that Abe Lincoln and Frederick Douglass referred to the Declaration of Independence at times, and the DoI certainly played a part in the formation of the 15th Amendment.