“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

The speech was not written in the form it is remembered in; the passage was improvised on the evening itself, which is part of what makes it striking. Read as a moral claim rather than a national slogan, the demand is that a country honour a principle it has already written down.