Equality and America’s 250th Anniversary
By Hooshyar Afsar
Introduction
July 4, 2026, was the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Considered one of the most important documents in human history, the U.S. Declaration of Independence (USDOI) was authored by Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, one of the founding fathers and the third president of the United States. The most well-known part of the USDOI is its preamble, which declares: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
What did Jefferson really mean when he wrote that all men are created equal? What has happened to the notion of “equality” in the 250 years of U.S. history? What could we stand for in 2026 when it comes to these noble words?
The Lesser Known Parts of the USDOI
The longest part of the USDOI is dedicated to a “Bill of Grievances,” which is basically a list of 27 complaints. This was the main justification for why the thirteen British colonies intended to separate from the British Empire to become an independent country. Starting in the preamble, the USDOI sets the stage for the complaints by stating that what has taken place is not just “light and transient,” but a “design” of “absolute despotism”… and when that happens, “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.”
The first 26 complaints cover all aspects of colonial rule by the then-king of Great Britain, who had established an “absolute tyranny.” But the 27th complaint is rather distinct. First, it addresses the issue of indigenous people living in the thirteen colonies and beyond. Second, it indirectly talks about one of the most important desires/demands (if not the most important) of the white settlers in the colonies: the topic of expansion.
Before we discuss the relevance of this to equality, let’s see what the 27th complaint says and why. It states that the king “has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”
While the reference to the indigenous people as “merciless Indian Savages” is an outright racial slur, the beginning part stating “domestic insurrections” is referring to enslaved people’s rebellions against their condition. So, in one complaint, the founding fathers covered two shameful aspects of American history that existed and now continue in different forms: racism against and enslavement of African Americans, plus racism against and extermination of the indigenous people.
The indigenous aspect of the 27th complaint started when the British Empire signed a treaty with the indigenous people in October 1763 (the king’s concession to Pontiac.) Some historians believe that the 27 complaints of the USDOI commenced with smaller grievances and ended with the bigger ones, suggesting that the 27th complaint was the most consequential to the leaders of the independence movement, i.e., the British king’s opposition to the expansion and confiscation of the land from indigenous people in North America.
So right there, stating that “[a]ll men are created equal” in the preamble and then by using a racial slur against the indigenous people of North America, Jefferson and all the other fifty-five founding fathers who signed the USDOI created a historic contradiction that continues to live on. Perhaps contradiction is too mild a word and hypocrisy is a better representation of what they did and have done. In the famous words of the seventeenth-century French moralist La Rochefoucauld: “Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue,” meaning that even bad and dishonest people feel a need to be good!
If we look at the outcome rather than the intent, what followed in the ensuing century was more than horrific. While millions of indigenous people had perished already in the whole of the Americas in what many historians call a genocide, the shameful actions continued over the next ninety years with the expansion of enslavement for the production of the cotton that required more land, hence the continuation of the genocide against the indigenous people to push them out of the fertile lands they inhabited. [1, 2]
Equality and Age of Enlightenment
Why is it relevant to talk about the Enlightenment? Jefferson and many of the founding fathers were influenced by the Enlightenment thinkers of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe. Equality was one of the major themes emerging among these thinkers, who wrote about the origins of inequality. The assumption of many of those thinkers, such as Rousseau, was that at one point humans living in primitive societies lived as equals. Yet, with the introduction of agriculture and the accumulation of wealth and ownership, social classes emerged and equality was compromised. The discussion of equality among enlightenment thinkers in Europe was deeply impacted by the indigenous people of North America. Even though the indigenous societies did not claim to have equality, the notion of private property and class hierarchy did not exist in many of those communities.
This topic is further discussed with detailed academic research in The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by Graeber and Wengrow, published in 2023. [3] The authors argue that certain indigenous people of North America provided a practical model which countered the then-existing European civilization, a model that opposed class hierarchy, punitive law, patriarchy, and behavior motivated by profit. This opposing model—communicated via travelogues and written debates between missionary figures and certain indigenous personalities—found its way into the Enlightenment circles of Europe and impacted their thinking.
It is not clear whether Jefferson was aware of the influence of the indigenous model on the Age of Enlightenment, yet it is clear that he was influenced by the “origins of inequality” discussion in Europe and yearning for equality.
What Did Jefferson Really Mean?
Perhaps we shall never know for sure what Jefferson meant when he wrote: “… all men are created equal.” We could pose certain questions and use his writings to make guesses. Let’s start with our inquiry.
Did Jefferson mean only men were created equal and not women? Did he mean only white men with property? Did he mean that all men were created equal yet later, due to many factors, “degenerated” into groups who were no longer equal? What exactly did Jefferson mean by equality? Equal capabilities and traits? Equality with regard to laws of the state?
The only book written by Jefferson is Notes on the State of Virginia, first published in 1785. In addition to the USDOI, he wrote many letters, yet they are not necessarily as official as these two documents. In Notes, Jefferson clearly talks about Black people as an inferior race both in “body and mind.” In the same book, Jefferson argues that the indigenous people of North America (Native Americans) had similar traits as white Europeans.
Enlightenment thinkers of Europe were divided between monogenists and polygenists. Polygenists, like Linnaux, believed that different human “races” were “created” as separate by the “creator,” with white Europeans having the most advanced and superior traits, while Africans were at the bottom of the human hierarchy with the most inferior traits. On the other hand, monogenists like Buffon and Blumenbach believed that all human “races” originated from Adam and Eve (who were similar to white Europeans) and “degenerated” into hierarchies because of environmental and other factors. In Buffon’s human hierarchy, white Europeans were put at the top, while Africans were fourth and Native Americans were fifth.
Jefferson had a debate with Buffon when serving as Ambassador to France, arguing that the indigenous people of North America had the same capabilities as white Europeans. While opposing slavery in words, Jefferson owned an average of sixty enslaved human beings throughout his adult life. He also believed that after ending slavery, all freed enslaved people should be sent back to Africa since it was impossible for them to live side by side with white Europeans. It seems that Jefferson had contradictory views and vacillated between monogenesis and polygenesis. So at the time of writing the USDOI, he at least believed in “monogenesis” because he wrote “[a]ll men are created equal.”
On the question of men versus women, Jefferson’s early writings had some flavors of misogyny, yet historians relate that to a romantic rejection and social anxieties. Later in life, he focused on women’s traditional role as child bearers and romantic partners. This was the predominant view of women among most male Enlightenment thinkers also. Perhaps we can be more certain that he meant men and not women when he wrote “[a]ll men are created equal.”
Ending Notes
Regardless of the contradictions and even hypocrisy of the founding fathers and regardless of what they really meant, their declaration made equality one of the central themes of what the United States stood for. Forty-one of the 56 signers of the USDOI (73%) enslaved people at some point in their lives. At least 13 presidents of the United States (POTUSs) enslaved people at some point in their lives and eight actively enslaved human beings while in office. On the other hand, there were others like John Adams, the second POTUS, who never enslaved people yet were vehement opponents of equality and praised the class hierarchy and aristocracy of Great Britain.
Still, the U.S.’s aim for equality, despite defeats and retreats, never stopped. In December 1865, after a bloody civil war, the United States ratified the 13th Amendment, banning slavery and, in July 1868, the 14th Amendment was ratified, providing birthright citizenship, legal due process, and equal protection under the law for all. This was followed by the 15th Amendment in 1870, which disallowed denial of the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude. It took almost 50 more years when the right of vote for women was secured when the 19th Amendment was ratified. Last, but not least, it took a decades-long civil rights movement to secure the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, followed by the Voting Rights and Immigration Acts of 1965. None of those accomplishments were possible without standing for equality as a major existential theme of the United States.
Perhaps the best way to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the USDOI is to stand for equality and equal rights in these crucial times.
References
[1] Blackhawk, Ned, “Without Indigenous History, There Is No U.S. History,” Time Magazine, (April 26, 2023; retrieved February 7, 2024).
[2] Beckert, Sven, Empire of Cotton. Penguin Books, Harlow, England (2015).
[3] Graber, David and Wengrow, David, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, USA (2021).
