Lies the government told you

George III had never embraced this philosophy, and the bulk of the Declaration listed the ways in which he had abused his power: Great Britain taxed the colonies without granting them representation, prohibited them from trading with the rest of the world, and broke its own laws to exploit them. According to Congress, the King left the United States no alternative but to sever ties with Great Britain and form a new nation with its own government, one that would keep secure its people’s natural rights.

The government that emerged from the American victory in the Revolutionary War, however, did not treat all men equally. The United States Constitution, for example, contained provisions that implicitly and explicitly recognized slavery’s legitimacy, protected it as an institution, and insulated it from regulation or interference by the federal government. In fact, the government permitted slavery for almost one hundred years after Thomas Jefferson wrote the immortal “all Men are created equal” language. It was not until recently that the government’s behavior matched these words and African-Americans truly became equal under the law.

President Barack Obama stated that it is an American tradition that “all men are created equal under the law and . . . no one is above it.”² The implication in that statement is false. It may be true that no one is above the law, but for much of American history, African-Americans were below it. The Founding Fathers, as brilliant and courageous as they were, lied to us. Abraham Lincoln, the so-called “Great Emancipator,” lied to us. The Supreme Court of the United States, in upholding Jim Crow laws, lied to us. Thankfully, one of the great things about this country is that over time, Americans get smarter. We recognize our transgressions and work to correct them. Some of the greatest advances in human rights have come after some of the greatest assaults on them. After 230 years of exceptional indignity, lawlessness, and bloodshed, we can now say that “all Men are created equal,” and mean it. But that was not the case in 1776.

Founding Slave Owners

Upon the signing of the Declaration of Independence, 20 percent of America’s population was enslaved.³ Most of the approximately five hundred thousand slaves living in the United States in 1776 were concentrated in the five southernmost states, where they represented 40 percent of the population.⁴ The Founding Fathers owned slaves. In fact, four of the first five American Presidents, including the still-beloved George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, owned slaves.⁵

Thomas Jefferson condemned slavery and vehemently opposed its expansion. In his first term in the Virginia House of Burgesses, Jefferson proposed a law to free Virginia’s slaves.⁶ In 1774, Jefferson urged the Virginia delegates to the First Continental Congress to abolish the slave trade.⁷ According to Jefferson, “[t]he abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies where it was unhappily introduced. . . .”⁸ Furthermore, Jefferson wrote a draft constitution for the State of Virginia that forbade the importation of slaves.⁹ Also, in a draft of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson complained of Britain’s introduction of slavery and the slave trade to the colonies.¹⁰

Jefferson also played an integral role in enacting the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which quickened the westward expansion of the United States, while also providing that “[t]here shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory . . .”¹¹ Later, in 1808, President Jefferson signed a statute prohibiting the Atlantic slave trade.¹²

Jefferson should be admired for instilling in America the democratic and egalitarian principles that we hold so sacred today. The fact remains, however, that Jefferson owned slaves. At the time he wrote that “all Men are created equal,” he owned about two hundred slaves, and slavery played an integral role in his life.¹³ Slaves constructed his majestic home and even his personal coffin.¹⁴

According to Jefferson, African-Americans may not have been inferior to whites, but they certainly were different. In his book, Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson recounted his observations of the physical differences between blacks and whites¹⁵ and wrote negatively and positively about African-American behavior.¹⁶ For example, Jefferson noticed that as compared to whites, blacks required less sleep, but were more adventurous than whites.¹⁷ In analyzing their mental capacity, Jefferson observed that blacks had better memories than whites, but could not reason nearly as well as their white counterparts.¹⁸ From his observations, Jefferson concluded that by nature, African-Americans were not as intelligent as whites.¹⁹ However, with respect to moral capacity (the “heart,” as Jefferson called it), Jefferson believed that God did create all men equal.²⁰ Furthermore, Jefferson wrote that “nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that [slaves] are to be free,” and he believed that African-Americans had “a natural right” to pursue freedom.

Moreover, according to the historian John C. Miller, in the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson may have intentionally left “property” off the list of inalienable rights to pave the road for placing slaves’ human rights above the property rights of their slave owners.²¹ Alexander Hamilton, a Founding Father who once owned slaves in New York, and the first United States Secretary of the Treasury, wrote in The Federalist, No. 1, written for the People of New York, and more broadly, the citizens of the United States, that signing the Constitution “is the safest course for your liberty, your dignity, and your happiness” (emphasis added). However, the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution states, in part, that “[n]o person shall be . . . deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law” (emphasis added). In ratifying the Constitution, did Congress abandon Jefferson’s intent? Did it become less sympathetic to human rights? Did the Founders find no shame in condoning slavery as a property right protected by due process?

Regardless of his ideas on the equality of men, Jefferson believed that blacks and whites could not coexist as equals.²² He feared that if whites did not treat blacks paternalistically, there would be a race war resulting in