" All men are equal" say our Founding Fathers, written down in the Declaration of Independence. But did the actions of the United States stay consistent with these bold and noble words? One of the biggest counterarguments to this is the practice of slavery. Americans, especially southerners, owned and oppressed slaves despite what it said in the Declaration. The Dred Scott case, however, shed some light onto why people still believed slavery to be acceptable. The judge of the case quite clearly declared that although the Declaration did say that all men were equal, the Founding Fathers meant all men of property and honor, and that the Africans clearly did not fit this description so they were not even considered men. Now, this all comes down to perspective, because it is probably true that when the Founding Fathers wrote down "all men" they considered men to be honorable whites owning property and wealth. However, when other people view this statement, they consider the phrase "all men"to literally mean every sing man and women on earth, because that's the way they understand it. That is their perspective. All this confusion and chaos that eventually led to states seceding and the Civil War can all be traced back to this one misunderstanding, which is due to different perspectives being involved.
Arsh, do you think that the authors of the Declaration meant the definition of "All Men" to be flexible? Jefferson seemed to foresee a future in which blacks and whites were both part of civil society; does that mean that he thought his own words might come to mean more in time?
ReplyDeleteI think that the authors of the declaration did not mean the definition of "all men" to be flexible, because picking and choosing certain men to fit this requirement would be the same as saying all men are NOT equal. So yes, I have a feeling that Jefferson knew his words would come to mean more in time, and that is why he chose those precise words.
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