'That all men had been created equal, and endowed with an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, were not remotely self-evident truths. That most Americans believed they were owed less to philosophy that to the Bible: to the assurance given equally to Christianity and Jews, to Protestants and Catholics, to Calvinist and Quakers, that every human being was created in God's image. The truest and ultimate seedbed of the American republic - no matter what some of those who had composed its founding documents might have cared to think - was the book of Genesis.'
Tom Holland, Dominion, p.384.
