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. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
Americans, equality is a word that has been expanded in its definition since the founding of the country. For Jefferson and many of our Founding Fathers, the phrase "…that all men are created equal…" really meant that "all free, property-owning males are created equal". Questioned frederick douglass in his Rochester speech: "Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us. Equality is not something that a government can grant or deny a body of citizens; for this right is inalienable. Our Bill of Rights can be more accurately thought of as a list of restrictions (placed on government) that secures a citizen's civil liberties. Our Declaration of Independence says that each individual has certain basic rights, which are neither conferred by nor derived from the state. To discover where they came from it is necessary to move back behind the dim mist of eternity, for they are God-given.
Furthermore, the US government is already promoting de facto equality with the graduated tax code, economic welfare and entitlement programs, affirmative action, et cetera. The government should by all means promote legal equality — as it has — but its responsibility should extend "no further than the removal of legal barriers to equality." Jefferson most definitely, at least at this point in his life, did not mean to include women in this statement. Jefferson saw women as "different" and therefore should be treated differently. Someone else can comment on the level of a misogynist he was, but I do know he believed that women shouldn't be educated the same way that men were.
While Jefferson was certainly intelligent and ahead of his time, some ideas of his were right in line with the status quo, his ideas about women being only one of them (the women's suffrage movement wouldn't gain speed until almost 100 years after the constitution). Another was "what happened to the exotic animals that we no longer see these days, like the saber-toothed tiger and the giant sloth?" . The prevailing idea of the day was that those animals had actively moved away from human civilization. So, when Jefferson commissioned the Lewis and Clark expedition, he instructed them to be on the lookout for those animals, thinking that this "wilderness" might be where they had gone to. But, I digress.
What did the founders mean when they wrote that “all men are created equal”? Did they mean that all men are equal in all matters? For example, did they mean that all men were born into equal social position? Did they mean that all men are born into equal financial situations? Experience would deny those interpretations. The founders themselves recognized from their own experience in many of their writings that different men were born into different situations.Did they mean that all men were equally talented? That all men were equally intelligent? Once again, experience would deny these assertions
I feel that not all men are equal not all of us do the say act same. their are people out their that may look the same and act but dont mean their equal. Yes were all guys but not all of us have the same personality i just think that not all men are alike and if it is then should all women be alike are they alike.