 I think one of the most important things to remember about the Declaration of Independence, and this is true of the Constitution as well, is that there were many participants in those conversations and they did not all agree about everything. So there are many voices in the Declaration. It's not a single voice that we hear. So I like to call the Declaration a polyphonic text. So just to give you an example, the Committee of Five that drafted the Declaration consisted of four Northerners, none of whom were slaveholders, and one Southerner. So right there in the Committee you have