What did the Declaration of Independence mean by "created equal?"
About this video
This video explains that when the Declaration says all are 'created equal', the founders did not mean people are equal in height, strength or education. They meant that in the most fundamental respect, dignity and worth, everyone is equal, so government must not favor some people's interests over others'. The video notes that America itself fell short of this through slavery and Jim Crow.
You'll be able to
- explain what 'created equal' meant to the founders.
- explain why this idea was radical in history.
- describe how America fell short of this principle.
Key words
- equality
- Here, being equal in worth and dignity as a person, not in every ability or trait.
- dignity
- The value and respect every person deserves just for being a person.
- realists
- People who see the world as it actually is, including real differences between people.
- Jim Crow
- Laws and practices that enforced racial segregation and discrimination in the U.S. after slavery ended.
- repudiate
- To reject something completely.
Transcript
The founders were realists. They knew perfectly well that there were a vast number of respects in which human beings are not equal. We're not equal in height and weight and so forth, of course, in respect after respect, after respect, people are not equal. Now what should follow from that for how governments should regard the interests of people?
Should government favor, treat as more worthy. Those who are stronger, more powerful, more highly educated. The founders say, well, no. Rather in the most fundamental respect, that is in respect of the dignity and worth of a person. The government must treat all as equal. All as equal in worth and dignity. It can't favor the interests of some over the others on the basis of any of those other factors. This has radical implications when you think about it, that most societies have not historically recognized the equal dignity of all members of the human family or all members even if their communities, we ourselves as a society are polity. Although we paid lip service early on to the principle of equality,
we had a vicious system of racial discrimination. First with slavery and then with Jim Crow. It took an awful lot of struggle and work to overcome that discrimination. We still live today in certain respects with the legacy of that discrimination. But most societies and most times in human history have thought that there were some people who are inherently inferior and other people who are inherently superior. That's what's repudiated by the declaration.
The declaration holds there are no inherent superiors or inferiors.
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