On 22 Feb 2005 17:42:52 GMT, Dan Murphy wrote:

What's a founding father? Is it someone who signed the Declaration of
Independence, thereby putting themselves and their fortunes in grave peril?
Or is it someone that debated and voted on the Constitution after the war
was won? What do you consider the founding document of this country? Was
Lincoln fighting the Redcoats?

Actually, Lincoln seems to have extended the US Declaration of
Independence into the law of the land. AFAIK It was not so
intended.

http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9708/maier.html
[
It was Abraham Lincoln, author of the Emancipation Proclamation, she
said, who reinterpreted the Declaration of Independence and made it
applicable to all.

"Lincoln made blacks, immigrants and late-arrivers 'bone of my bone
and flesh of my flesh' with the Founders," she said.

Interpreting the Declaration of Independence, said Ms. Maier, has
become a quasi-religious exercise.
]

He's bound to have annoyed many wingers & conservatives.
--
Cliff