What Issues Did the Declaration of Independence Fail to Resolve Regarding Equality? Perhaps the most powerful political

What Issues Did the Declaration of Independence Fail to Resolve Regarding Equality?

Perhaps the most powerful political document in the world history is the Declaration of Independence that was adopted in July 1776. It posed a revolutionary vision of equality of men by the statement that all men are created equal, with natural rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. Nevertheless, regardless of the rhetorical strength of its wording, the Declaration did not address the practical problems of equality on a fundamental level. Ideals outlined in the document were constrained by social, political and economic realities of the eighteenth century America. Most important, the enslaved African Americans, women, and Indigenous people were left out in the promise of equality on the Declaration. Even these loose contradictions demonstrate that the Declaration was rather an aspirational document than a comprehensive justice guide that is fully inclusive.

The omission of slavery in the Declaration was also one of the greatest failures of the Declaration as far as equality was concerned. Even though, initially, Thomas Jefferson had a passage to denounce the transatlantic slave trade, this section was distpped to get the approval of the southern colonies. Consequently, the last document did not even make an effort to discuss the issue of slavery, despite the fact that the representative of the enslaved population constituted almost a fifth of the entire colonial population. The fact that all men had natural rights as stated in the Declaration was in direct contradiction to the fact that black people were enslaved and lacked freedom, any rights as a legal person, and even a voice in the politics. This paradox shows the extent of revolutionary equality in case there were economic interests involved.

The reality of enslavement is an example of how empty the promises made by the Declaration sounded. Slaves in the petition To the Honorable Council and House of Representatives of the State of Massachusetts-Bay (1777) made a clear appeal to the language of natural rights to secure liberty. They contended that freedom was a natural endowment of God and how hypocritical the white colonists struggled to achieve freedom and yet upheld slavery. This primary source shows that the underprivileged groups understood the ideals of the Declaration and tried to implement them everywhere, even in the situations when the founding generation did not want to.

The equality of women was also not applied in the vision of equality in the Declaration. Even though the document was written in the language of universality, the property owning white men were the only group that could enjoy political rights. Women were not legally independent, had no right to vote, and were under the coverture laws, which made them under the control of their husbands. This inequality has been highlighted in an 1776 letter of Abigail Adams to John Adams. In her appeal to the ladies, Adams cautioned that women would not tolerate laws to which they had no representation. The scoffing reaction of John Adams shows that even the leaders of the revolution considered that the equality of women in politics was unrealistic or dangerous. This dialogue shows that the issue of gender equality was not part of the revolutionary agenda.

Moreover, the Declaration did not consider the status of the Indigenous people as equal members of the new country. Instead of considering the Native Americans as possessors of natural rights, the Declaration calls them as merciless Indian Savages since they would be a hindrance to the colonization and not a political community that should have autonomy. This language mirrors a racialized order which explained land expropriation and violence. The Declaration strengthened inequality and created a foundation of violence and dislocation of Indigenous people in the future by ignoring their inclusion in its moral framework.

The interpretations are reinforced by secondary historical scholarship. According to The American Yawp, historians point out that the ideals of the Declaration were radical but unfulfilled due to the compromise that had to be made to keep the colonial unity intact. According to the text, equality in 1776 was mostly confined to white men and that there were the oppressed groups who had to embark on protracted battles before acquiring rights that were promised but not given. On the same note, as written by Eric Foner, the Declaration expressed a universal law of equality and at the same time permitted inequality to exist. Foner argued that the strength of the Declaration is that it influenced future reform movements despite not solving the injustice when it was created.

Irrespective of these deficiencies it is necessary to note that the unresolved issues of equality in the Declaration provided chances of change in the future. Abolitionists, women leaders, and civil rights leaders reverted to its words severally to highlight hypocrisy and demand change. The very reason why the slaves and women referred to the Declaration shows the moral power it still has. But this does not deny the fact that it was equality that was promised but not given in 1776.

To sum up, the Declaration of Independence was unable to solve urgent equality problems as it did not apply to the slaves of African African descent, women, and indigenous people. Although it was a statement of a radical philosophy of natural rights, racial, gendered, and economic hierarchies curtailed its application. These contradictory issues which remain unresolved show the strong and weak sides of the document. The Declaration offered a background of ideas of democracy, and it was up to the later generations to achieve the true equality.

Works Cited

Adams, Abigail. Letter to John Adams, 31 March 1776. The American Yawp, Stanford University Press, www.americanyawp.com.

Adams, John. Letter to Abigail Adams, April 1776. National Archives.

“Declaration of Independence.” 1776. National Archives, www.archives.gov.

Foner, Eric. The Story of American Freedom. W. W. Norton & Company, 2022.

The American Yawp: A Massively Collaborative Open U.S. History Textbook. Stanford University Press, 2023.