Title: The Greatest Sentence Ever Written
Author: Walter Isaacson
Reviewed by: Jonathan Addleton, president and rector of Forman Christian College and former U.S. Ambassador to Mongolia
The Greatest Sentence Ever Written is a small book on a big topic. Published to mark the 250th anniversary of The Declaration of Independence, it provides a detailed look at the familiar second sentence of that short document drafted by Thomas Jefferson:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Although contemporary sensibilities stumble over at least one phrase in that memorable sentence — “that all men are created equal”, rather than, say, a more inclusive reference to “all people, male and female, slave and free” that would have been even more truly revolutionary for its time — the sentiments expressed resonate through the centuries as a masterpiece of eloquence that is both concise and inspiring, providing in only a few words guiding principles for a new nation based on the “self-evident” truth of “equality” that in turn confers certain “unalienable rights.”
As the author of several weighty biographies on historical figures including Benjamin Franklin, Henry Kissinger, Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs and Leonardo de Vinci, Isaacson highlights some of the ways in which others including Franklin and John Adams contributed to Jefferson’s masterpiece, modifying his initial impressive draft into something even better.
For example, Franklin successfully made the case to the Committee finalizing the Declaration based on Jefferson’s initial draft for substituting “self-evident” truths for “sacred” truths. Similarly, Adams is credited with having changed Jefferson’s original phrase that men are created equal “and from that equal creation they derive rights” to the more succinct and much more memorable phrase “endowed by their Creator”, striking a judicious balance between, as Isaacson phrases it, “the role of divine providence and that of reason in determining our rights.”
Although numbering less than a hundred pages, Isaacson’s book concludes with an impassioned appeal for an increasingly divided United States to return to its first principles, namely the ones contained in “the greatest sentence ever written” which he views as key to guiding a continued search for the “common ground” needed to preserve “for ourselves and our posterity the rights and aspirations that we all share, including to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.
Editor’s notes: Global Atlanta will receive a 10 percent commission on any purchase of this book through the links on this page.
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