Everything about All Men Are Created Equal totally explained
The quotation
"All men are created equal" is arguably the best-known phrase in any of
America's political documents, as the idea it expresses is generally considered the foundation of American
democracy.
Thomas Jefferson first used the phrase in the
Declaration of Independence as a rebuttal to the going political theory of the day: the
Divine Right of Kings. None of Jefferson's biographers or studies of the Declaration accept the claim that the phrase was suggested by
Philip Mazzei, although this claim has been made by non-scholars.
The opening of the Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson in
1776, states as follows:
The same sentiment appears in the
Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, which predates the
U.S. Constitution by seven years, and was the first of its kind in the world.
The year 1780 also marks the first time in America that such wording was used to successfully argue against slavery in a court of law:
Brom and Bett vs. Ashley.
Many people understand these statements to refer to the biblical idea that God created humans in His image. The thinking is that if we're all created in His image, we're all of equal value and possess the same God-given rights. Others feel these statements illustrate the idea of
natural rights, a philosophical concept of the
Enlightenment; many of the ideas in the Declaration were borrowed from the
English liberal political philosopher John Locke. Locke, however, referred to "
life,
liberty and
Property" rather than the pursuit of happiness.
The phrase has since been considered a hallmark statement in democratic constitutions and similar human rights instruments, many of which have adopted the phrase or variants thereof.
Applications in American history
Declaring the equality of all men did not, however, prevent the United States from continuing the widespread practice of
slavery. However, President
Abraham Lincoln relied on the Declaration of Independence when making the case that slavery went against the deepest commitments of the American nation. Though he did so throughout the
1850s and into his presidency, the most famous example can be found in the
Gettysburg Address:
When
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others convened in
Seneca Falls, New York in July 1848, they drafted and signed a document titled the
Declaration of Sentiments. The opening sentence alludes to this phrase:
Martin Luther King, Jr. in his famous
I Have a Dream speech, as the "creed" of the United States:
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