This goal led to political and social changes throughout the nation, the most important and obvious being the redefinition of both “freedom” and “property.” For some citizens of the United States, freedom meant "men must do what they will with other men and with the product of other men's labor", which is how slavery was justified in the eyes of the Southern states. They believed they had the freedom to control lesser men, or black men, and to claim the fruits of those men's labor as their own. They even twisted the words of the Founding Fathers to say, “all white men are created equal.” Essentially claiming the black community as his property and not as equal men with equal rights. Lincoln defined freedom as “every man doing what he will with himself and with the produce of his labor.” It was his belief that every man, regardless of color, had the same fundamental rights as everyone else. Through his attempt to ratify the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, Lincoln changed the nation's definition of both liberty and property. ALL men were now free and NO man was owned