Silent Cal Speaks Loudly

The Wall Street Journal's Notable & Quotable provides us with some nuggets from Calvin Coolidge's marking of the 150th anniversary of the Delcaration of Independence. Coolidge gave us some important words to remember in 2008:

If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with
inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from
the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made
beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their
soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not
forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of
the individual, no rule of the people.

Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress.
They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than
those of the Revolutionary fathers.