All Men Were Created Equal Dbq Analysis

The Declaration of Independence includes the statement that all men are created equal. Not all people had the rights and freedoms of everyone else. Source B is a letter from Abigail Adams to her husband, John Adams. She declares that the Continental Congress in Philadelphia should be generous and favorable to the women, by letting them have a say in government, and give them more rights. In Source C, the author of this slave petition to the House of Representatives expresses his feelings of not being able to have freedoms as an African American living in America.

There is no equality and justice for all. Thomas Jefferson had negative thoughts about people of color, in most jobs, men get paid more than women, and finally, the Equal Rights Amendment states, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of [gender].” Firstly, Thomas Jefferson wrote The Declaration Of Independence, but he was still a slave owner who had negative thoughts about people of color. Thomas Jefferson was a huge help in declaring freedom from British rule for all U.S. citizens,

No founding father and revolutionist who affirmed and believed in a just and free America would affirm human bondage. At the time and in 1776, only a few men proclaimed slavery as a necessary evil, however, most men, even in the remotest of the United States believed in the freedom of men. According to Thomas Jefferson in his love for Justice and the love of country script, he stood on the viewpoint that that equality was a moral obligation that ought to be preserved and observed by all mankind

When The Second Continental Congress approved of the Declaration of Independence, it purposefully avoided the complicated situation that was slavery. African Americans, both freed and enslaved, were outraged. How could the Founding Fathers write such a riveting and long document for themselves, while completely ignoring the African American struggle for freedom on the basis of skin tone? The hypocrisy was too much for Benjamin Banneker, who took it upon himself to write a letter to Thomas Jefferson about the atrocities of slavery, and persuade him to abolish the practice. In it, Banneker used allusions, a melancholy diction, and deductive reasoning to state his argument against the enslavement of his color.

Dred Scott was taken back into slavery and accused Sandford because Scott was in a free states and claimed that he was in the free state long enough to be a free slave. The Supreme court ruled against Dred Scott, this decision affected blacks preventing them to become citizens and an giving them the right to appeal to a jury and making it harder for a slave to escape because the free states didn’t make a runaway slave a free slave. The case also affected popular sovereignty. Where states got to choose if they were to be a free states or a slave

Samuel Morse said in Imminent Dangers to the Free Institutions of the United States “that no foreigner who comes into the country… shall ever be allowed the right to suffrage.” (Doc. D). As said earlier, the nativist movement tried to protect democracy, but left behind the traditional principle of equality. The declaration says that “all men are created equal” not just those born in America. Everyone deserved the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, which includes the right to vote.

After being separated from his mother at a young age, Frederick Douglass fights back against slavery and human rights. In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, the author, Frederick Douglass, uses powerful rhetoric to disprove the Pragmatic and the Scientific pro-slavery arguments of Pre-Civil War America. The Pragmatic Argument is about how many people believe that if all black slaves were to be freed, then this would result in convulsions which would then lead to extermination of the one or other race. Many people also believed that black slavery was necessary for American history. Douglass disproves this argument in many ways.

This journey of pain and perseverance is portrayed through the Langston Hughes poem, “ Let America Be America.” Hughes uses the inequality that still stands in the “free” America to voice that everyone should be equal. Hughes uses various allusions to portray the didactic meaning of the poem that the statements of a free America for everyone, is far from the truth. Making allusions to certain instances, in African American history provided a way for Hughes’ audience to understand his underlying thought. Throughout the formation of the America today, African Americans have been discriminated starting from their beginning as slaves. Hughes describes African Americans during this time period as, “the Negro(s) bearing slavery’s scars.”(20) and, “ the

The subordination of African women supplied the British with the “legal foundation for slavery and the future definitions of racial difference.” This is seen in the Virginia Slave Codes, in which black femininity was harshly policed through laws that outlined racial differences and stripped black women of privileges, effectively blocking them from power. The Virginia Slave Codes explicitly denied black women of basic human rights, rights that white people enjoyed on an everyday basis. In every colony, European women and men lived a range of lives, from poor indentured servants to wealthy aristocrats, whereas black women were subjugated to the lowest of ranks. Because they were born in a black, female body, their status was disregarded and they were sentenced to generations of discrimination. The brutal and, oftentimes, fatal exploitation of black women during colonial America cannot be overstated as this exploitation has remained present in the politics and social life of black

Citizens. Slavery was deemed unconstitutional since beginning of the United States, but racist slave owning politicians interpreted the law to meet their demands. Slaves only purpose was to work the plantations land, not being allowed to be enlightened. After the war to “end slavery” concluded, the civil war was only regain the seceded southern states, not to abolish injustices towards African Americans. African Americans continued to be unrepresented until the 15th amendment was ratified in 1870.

He writes about his impulsions to end slavery in the Declaration of Independence contradict his harsh words in Notes on the State of Virginia. “Besides those of colour, figure, and hair, there are other physical distinctions proving a difference of race. They have less hair on the face and body. They secrete less by the kidnies, and more by the glands of the skin, which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odour.” claims Jefferson (789). He is stating that black people are brutes.