<P> The meaning of the Declaration was a recurring topic in the famed debates between Lincoln and Stephen Douglas in 1858 . Douglas argued that the phrase "all men are created equal" in the Declaration referred to white men only . The purpose of the Declaration, he said, had simply been to justify the independence of the United States, and not to proclaim the equality of any "inferior or degraded race". Lincoln, however, thought that the language of the Declaration was deliberately universal, setting a high moral standard to which the American republic should aspire . "I had thought the Declaration contemplated the progressive improvement in the condition of all men everywhere," he said . During the seventh and last joint debate with Steven Douglas at Alton, Illinois on October 15, 1858, Lincoln said about the declaration: </P> <P> I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men, but they did not mean to declare all men equal in all respects . They did not mean to say all men were equal in color, size, intellect, moral development, or social capacity . They defined with tolerable distinctness in what they did consider all men created equal--equal in "certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ." This they said, and this they meant . They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were then actually enjoying that equality, or yet that they were about to confer it immediately upon them . In fact, they had no power to confer such a boon . They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit . They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society which should be familiar to all, constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even, though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people, of all colors, everywhere . </P> <P> According to Pauline Maier, Douglas's interpretation was more historically accurate, but Lincoln's view ultimately prevailed . "In Lincoln's hands," wrote Maier, "the Declaration of Independence became first and foremost a living document" with "a set of goals to be realized over time". </P> <P> Like Daniel Webster, James Wilson, and Joseph Story before him, Lincoln argued that the Declaration of Independence was a founding document of the United States, and that this had important implications for interpreting the Constitution, which had been ratified more than a decade after the Declaration . The Constitution did not use the word "equality", yet Lincoln believed that the concept that "all men are created equal" remained a part of the nation's founding principles . He famously expressed this belief in the opening sentence of his 1863 Gettysburg Address: "Four score and seven years ago (i.e. in 1776) our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal ." </P>

Who wrote the declaration of independence and when was it signed