All Men Are Created Equal

This will be different from my other posts.  I try to have a general outline of what I want to say, to make my writing as concise, and enjoyable to read, as I can.  Today, I am going to free write.

I saw a distressing news segment where a man on the street interviewed young people about July 4, and what it meant to them. These young people were saying the “ideal” of the country was great, but the country was not.  A black woman said her family celebrated Juneteenth, not July 4, because this nation was built on slavery. It was not a happy segment for a grizzled old Army grunt like myself.

Part of me wants to deny this, wants to scold the youngsters for what they believe.  Another part of me, the reflective, contemplative part of me, wants to examine this in some detail.

I will start my contemplation with the assertion that this is a great nation.  Yes, slavery existed in the south.  But even at that time, the seeds of a great nation were being planted, even by people who themselves owned slaves.  All men are created equal. For those who have to counter with “women too”, knock it off.  ‘Men’ refers to mankind.  To all homo sapiens, male and female, regardless of how you want to see yourself.

All men are created equal.  It was a new ideal. Before we had nobles and peasants.  The rulers and the ruled.  Those who served and those who were served.  Along came these white guys with this idea.  “Hey, the Lord doesn’t create mistakes. He made us, man and woman, and because of that, every homo sapiens is the equal to another. That concept codified the injustice of slavery. God made the black man, and this creation was held in bondage.  If God made all men equal, if follows that treating another homo sapiens as property was a violation of God’s law.  The very Constitution recognized this. Here we get the oft maligned Three-Fifths compromise.

Even at the founding, there were two main factions.  Those who supported slavery, and those who opposed it. Those that opposed it were mainly in the North, those who supported it were mainly in the South.  The South was an agrarian culture.  There wasn’t a lot of production of goods, other than crops; cotton, tobacco, etc.  These crops were labor-intensive, and the southern plantation owners turned to slavery to provide cheap labor for their fields.

As the Founders hammered out the details of the Constitution that defined our government, they wanted a House in Congress to represent the people, what we call the House of Representatives.  The members of this House were apportioned by the population of the various states.  Southern slave owners wanted their representation based on the numbers of their slaves. The North was against this, as the slaves would have no say in this representation.  The Three-Fifths compromise was devised as a means of restricting the power of the slave-owning South, in order to create a unified country of 13 states.

I’ve heard African-Americans say, “This country only considered us as 3/5 a person.” This statement demonstrates historical ignorance.  Of course, if I didn’t know my history, I might also think that the Three-Fifths Compromise meant we considered slaves to be 3/5 of a human being.  But I do know history.  All men are created equal. Can you imagine a country in which a plantation owner need only purchase more slaves to obtain more political power?  What kind of country would we have become with that governmental structure?

The Three-Fifths Compromise only put off the inevitable. In the 1860’s the North and South went to war over a lot of things, but the undercurrent was the specter of slavery.  The war was costly, in terms of material and human lives.  When the war turned in the North’s favor after a couple of years that looked bleak, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and the North’s war to preserve the Union gained the moral stamp of freeing the slaves.

Let’s be clear.  There were those in the North who couldn’t give a tinker’s damn about the black man as a race. But many knew that regardless of their personal views, the idea that one man could own another was a terrible one.

This culminated in the proclamation in Texas that slavery was officially ended.  At

least in Texas, the words in the Declaration of Independence were finally realized.  That’s why they celebrate Juneteenth, and until recently, only in and around Texas.

I think it is right to celebrate the end of slavery.  It is a horrible institution that still exists today.  Seeing it end in our country is a thing worthy of celebration.  But it is a realization of the promise of the Declaration.  Men and women argued, debated, legislated, fought and died over the concept of all men being created equal.  July 4^th is a celebration of the big middle finger we gave to the King of England based on this concept.  That it was imperfectly realized at the beginning should not cheapen the idea that was espoused.  All men are created equal.  Every homo sapiens has the same rights as another homo sapiens.  

Juneteenth was a realization of that ideal. But even then, there was still work to do.  We’ve had constitutional amendments, numerous legislations, all with the goal of continuing to realize that ideal.  All men are created equal. 

Do we want to focus on the fallen side of man, that presents as racism, hatred and bigotry?  If so, then the United States was never a great country.  It was flawed, evil and oppressive, and still is.  As long as there are bigots and racist, this is a bad country, with systemic racism, and constant pressure to keep the oppressed, oppressed.

Or do we focus on the vision that led to the Emancipation Proclamation, Juneteenth, the 13^th and 14^thAmendment, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and other acts, great and small, that reinforced the concept first written down in the Declaration?  All men are created equal. No country has ever done that before.  It’s in our seminal document.  We have fought and died to make that dream a reality.  And people don’t think that’s worthy of celebration?  I don’t blame the young.  I blame us old folk for allowing our educational system to degrade to the point where our young people don’t know our history, the good and the bad.

All men are created equal.  That includes the young’ns.  I guess.