“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.” These words have been immortalized into the patriotic minds of all those who are proud to call themselves American.
Throughout school, we are credulously blinded by the belief that we were the morally righteous rebels who conquered our enemy to manufacture a nation of freedom. While it is inaccurate to say people did not gain new freedoms once the colonies had won the bloody revolution, the statements that lay in these claims are horribly deluded from the truth.
These words, which come from the Declaration of Independence, may very well be the most hypocritical statement in all of American history. As what it states itself as, being ‘self-evident,’ contradicts the entailment of the obvious existence of slavery during the time period. How can ‘all men be created equal’ if a whole group of men are destined to tyrannical subjection by another human being?
A person may assume that this may just be a nitpick of conservative societal values. Morality is dependent on the beliefs of a society within a given time. A person may say during this specific time, Africans were not deemed human but rather property that should not be put on the same moral standards as those of white men. People carry on their slow-changing ancestral beliefs, so, society thinks differently in the past and the future. But, we can see this is untruthful in this case by using the same words as the men who wrote the Declaration.
“-there is nothing I would not sacrifice to a practicable plan of abolishing every vestige of this moral and political depravity. but I am at present comparing the condition & degree of suffering to which oppression has,” states Thomas Jefferson, draft writer of the Declaration. Most of the founding fathers had been adamant opponents to the foundation of slavery, yet pledged to keep its institution from fear of destabilizing the nation’s economy.
Within the Declaration of Independence, when ‘men’ is understood as a distinction of humanity rather than devotion to a single gender, it also incriminates the rights women had. Women did not have the right to vote, own property, have education, or simple distinction from the limiting gender roles of ‘Republican Motherhood’ pretexts. How ‘self-evident’ is the ‘unalienable right’ of ‘liberty’ when half of the population was oppressed till the 20th century, and a fourth of the population was coerced into a life of unpaid labor till 1863? Discrimination based on race and gender was not even deemed illegal till the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which only happened 60 years ago. If the foundation of our nation was so easily corrupted at its conception, how can we derive a sense of pride from our history?
American culture stems from patriotism; we prominently show the self-love we have through all forms of media, hang flags from every building, sing songs about ourselves, and even pledge our allegiance at every sporting event. With this, we have also created a societal pressure where we expect people to show the same pride, and we shame those who criticize our history. Many people in the South still defend the Confederacy, believing their actions were justified. The nation being so conflicted on such a major moral crime shows we hold our past up on a leaning pedestal. The growth of toxic patriotism makes it harder for our country to change and pass new laws protecting those who struggle.
These immoral contradictions in post-colonial America can be used actually to respect what makes our country so great. Our nation was born July 4th, 1776, we at the time were racist and sexist slave owners. In the little time that we have existed, we have undertaken a new standard of progression, we recognize our flaws so we can learn to be better. We relinquish the sins of our fathers because we can take pride in the knowledge that their crimes cannot be repeated. During the signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Bill, President Lyndon B. Johnson recognized the freedoms we had and also how these freedoms were not guaranteed, “-those who founded our country knew that freedom would be secure only if each generation fought to renew and enlarge its meaning,” We abolished slavery, fought for Democracy, and gave women and those of color the right to be equal. We should be extremely proud of our quick evolution. Johnson also said, “I urge every American to join in this effort to bring Justice and hope to all our people and to bring peace to our land.” As we enter a new era of political hostility, what will peace cost in the eyes of those who wish to destroy us?
