All Men Are Created Equal Analysis

One phrase often brought up when speaking of early American history is that “all men are created equal”. It’s a key line in the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson in 1776, and is one that many remember today. Some would argue that this is one of the foundations of our country, and it may even be something some Americans still pride ourselves for. But considering the oppression different races and sexes were facing at the time, could the phrase really have been as simple as it seemed? The founders wanted freedom from England, but were colonizing and brutalizing Native Americans, and enslaving Africans to work for them. Looking back, it’s debatable about who Jefferson was including when he said “all men”, and impossible
The purpose of the document was to declare independence from England, highlighting on ideas such as the consent of the governed, the pursuit of happiness, and all men being created equal ("Creating the United States, Creating the Declaration of Independence."). Though many believe when saying all men are created equal Jefferson was including all of humanity, considering the circumstances at the time it’s incredibly unlikely. Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776. At this time, Native Americans had been pushed off of their land in the east and forced to move to the west. This brought death into many of the communities, and loss of all the land and resources they’d come to own and depend on. The tragedy the Native Americans faced was at the benefit of white colonizers. In the same year that Jefferson wrote the Declaration, he wrote to a friend that hostile Indians should be destroyed (Takaki, 2008). The Indians only were deemed hostile based on their race and way of living that wasn’t similar to white peoples. If he considered Native Americans equal to white men, would he have blamed them for their own decline or advocated for their extermination? Jefferson was also a slave owner, owning 267 slaves by the year 1822 (Takaki, 2008). When looking at the facts, Jefferson was not inclusive of all people when speaking of all men. The
Many things that people of color and women couldn’t do back then such as own land, vote, and work in certain careers, are achievable now. One thing that brought about this evolution was minorities and oppressed groups demanding they receive more rights. Back then, Native Americans, women, and in the following years African Americans had virtually no rights. Though African Americans were eventually emancipated, laws that kept them from exercising rights were put in place. The Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed African American men the right to vote, but Jim Crow laws and individual’s racism prevented any significant amount of progress from occurring. The Civil Rights Movement ended segregation, yet the racist attitudes engrained into society continued to hinder black people. Now black men are able to vote without restrictions. You see a struggle with some similarities for women. Women had expectations they were meant to follow, and often were unable to pursue careers for themselves. Sexism was rampant throughout the 1900’s and very much dictated the way women lived. Through the perseverance of the suffragettes, women retained the right to vote in 1920 when the Nineteenth Amendment was passed. This brought about voting equality for all sexes and races. But the attitudes society held, and still holds to a large degree about women continued to hinder opportunities as they do with people of