The quotation
"All men are created equal" is arguably the best-known phrase in any of
America's political documents.
Thomas Jefferson first used the phrase in the
Declaration of Independence as a rebuttal to the going political theory of the day: the
Divine Right of Kings. It was thereafter quoted or incorporated into speeches by a wide array of substantial figures in American political and social life.
Origin of Jefferson's use of the phrase
center|800px|thumb|Line containing Jefferson's use of the phrase "all men are created equal", in the Declaration of Independence.Jefferson borrowed the expression from an Italian friend and neighbor,
Philip Mazzei, as noted by Joint Resolution 175 of the
103rd Congress as well as
John F. Kennedy in "A Nation Of Immigrants."
The opening of the
United States Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson in 1776, states as follows:
The same concept appears in the
Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, which was written mostly by
John Adams. The
Declaration of Rights of the Inhabitants of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts which opens that constitution states:
The plaintiffs in the cases of
Brom and Bett v. John Ashley and
Commonwealth v. Nathaniel Jennison argued that this provision abolished slavery in abolished in Massachusetts. The latter case resulted in a a "sweeping declaration . . . that the institution of slavery was incompatible with the principles of liberty and legal equality articulated in the new Massachusetts Constitution".
These statements illustrated the idea of
natural rights, a philosophical concept of the
Enlightenment and many of the ideas in the Declaration were borrowed from the
English liberal political philosopher John Locke. Locke, however, referred to "
life,
liberty and
Property" rather than the pursuit of happiness.
The phrase has since been considered a hallmark statement in democratic constitutions and similar human rights instruments, many of which have adopted the phrase or variants thereof.
Applications in American history
Declaring the equality of all men did not prevent the United States from continuing the widespread practice of
slavery, although the phrase was frequently raised by abolitionists in anti-slavery arguments. However, President
Abraham Lincoln relied on the Declaration of Independence when making the case that slavery went against the deepest commitments of the American nation. Though he did so throughout the 1850s and into his presidency, the most famous example can be found in the
Gettysburg Address:
When
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others convened at the
Seneca Falls Convention held in
Seneca Falls,
New York in July 1848, they drafted and signed a document titled the
Declaration of Sentiments. The opening sentence alludes to this phrase:
The phrase was also quoted by
Martin Luther King, Jr. in his famous
I Have a Dream speech, as the "creed" of the United States:
Hobbesian Origin
In fact
Thomas Hobbes proposed an early version of equality among men in his treatise
The Leviathan:
In the above passage Hobbes proposes an equivalence among men, based on the idea that the strongest man is not so strong that he is protected from the strength of the weakest and is thus not strong enough to be considered greater.
See also
- John Ball (1381), "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the nobleman?"
