![]() ![]() Even acknowledging all of that, we cannot ignore the transformative and bold words Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence: that it is “self-evident” that “all men are created equal.” Many people, enslaved and free, black and white, believed those words believed they expressed their long-held intuitions and condemned the wrongness of the oppression they suffered. He also questioned the equal intellectual capacity of black people, and he never really contemplated the equality of women on terms satisfactory to us today. Even though he produced eloquent denunciations of slavery, and he saw himself as a progressive on the question, he has been faulted for not working as hard for the freedom of African Americans as he did for that of white colonists. ![]() Native peoples could be, but only if they agreed to assimilate with white people. Neither the enslaved nor women were part of it. Jefferson’s vision of equality was not all-inclusive. Ordinary people would have a say in how their government was to be constituted. If there was to be an aristocracy, it would be one of talent, not birth. he wrote this, but others believe that he did mean to. But the interpretation of 'all men' has hovered over the Declaration of Independence since its creation. There would be no assumption that a given class of people was born to rule. The belief that all humans are created equal and are equal in value, without regard to their. All Men are Created Equal The concept that all men are created equal was a key to European Enlightenment philosophy. He began to think of different ways of ordering society. As the crisis with Britain flared up, Jefferson questioned the power of the church (preferring the primacy of science and reason), as well as laws that entrenched the power of great families (entail and primogeniture) and the morality of slavery. Yet, as a young man inspired by the books he read that introduced him to the Enlightenment, Jefferson began the process of questioning these hierarchies and status-based power.
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