While the Declaration is widely considered a prolegemena to the Constitution failed in both establishing the equality of all its citizens under the law, and excluded segments of the population from participating in the great experiment in which a free people consents to governance.

By Calvin’s time, both slavery as a Contitutionally sanctioned practice (property rights, and fractional census) and the denial of full womens suffrage had been overcome. As a champion of civil rights, which he was, he surely would have acknowledged this as progress, and would have rightfully acknowledged the role of progressive movements in these achievements.