Americans have struggled since 1776 to understand the meaning of the word ‘equal’
“We take these truths for granted that all human beings are created equal, that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights by their Creator, including life, freedom and the pursuit of happiness. To secure these rights, governments are set up among the people who derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. “
Some of the most powerful and least understood words are part of our Declaration of Independence. Historians differ in what these words meant when they were written and what they mean in our society today.
It is a known fact that Thomas Jefferson owned slaves when he was writing the Declaration of Independence. So isn’t it obvious that he didn’t mean “all men”? It is also known that with “men” in the scriptures of the 18th
No wonder, then, we continue to debate and debate what Jefferson and the Founding Fathers meant when they came up with these words to justify the American Revolution, which historian Gordon Wood described as creating a new “understanding of history, knowledge, and truth.” ”
If Jefferson had been content to use George Mason’s words in the Virginia Bill of Rights, we might have a better understanding of his meaning of the word “equal”.
It was Mason who said that “All human beings are born equally free and independent and have certain innate natural rights … including the enjoyment of life and freedom, the means to acquire and have property, and to seek happiness and security to get. ”
It certainly doesn’t have the disturbing sound of Jefferson’s shorter phrase, “All people are created equal,” but Mason provides a clearer picture of what was actually meant in the 1770s when men wrote and thought the concept of “equality.”
Andrew Jackson had become president by the 1830s, and the Age of Common Man seemed to indicate that if a man like Jackson could rise to the highest office in the country from an obscure backcountry family, all men would indeed be equal. But of course we know that not all of the men have been there yet.
For Jackson and those who supported him, however, equality basically meant the opportunity to become what a man could make of himself. As he explained, “Under any just government, there will always be differences in society … equality of talent, education or wealth cannot be established by human institutions.”
As one commentator at the time put it, “True republicanism requires that everyone has equal opportunities – that everyone should be free to become as unequal as possible.”
Whether Jefferson meant “all men” to open the door to eventually include all men, as some historians argue today, or whether he was simply stating that all men in the colonies had the same rights as all men in England, like others These words took on greater significance when Lincoln spoke them in his Gettysburg address.
“Twenty-four years ago our fathers on this continent gave birth to a new nation, conceived in Liberty and committed to the principle that all human beings are created equal.”
From the bloody battle of the Civil War to Civil Rights, to the victims and struggles of Martin Luther King Jr. to achieve his dreams, to today’s concerns about justice, we keep fighting over what the word “equal” means and what it should mean today. Understanding this word is not an easy task.
Wood reminded us in his book The Radicalism of the American Revolution: “The American Revolution not only changed the culture of Americans – it changed their art, architecture and iconography – it even changed their understanding of history, knowledge and truth.”
And Benjamin Franklin wisely replied when asked what kind of country was created in the Constitutional Convention of 1787: “A republic if you can keep it.”
The rest of this conversation, however, is less well known. When asked “Why not keep it?” Franklin replied, “Because when people try the dish, they always tend to eat more of it than is good for them.”
We are still preoccupied with the daunting task of understanding our history and how that history should affect our actions today as we seek to “preserve our republic.”
Have a nice and thoughtful 4th of July.
Blanche Henderson Brick is a retired professor of history at Blinn College in Bryan. She wrote this column for the Dallas Morning News.
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