We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal....
The statement above, from the Declaration of Independence, is surely known to almost every American. Probably, most Americans would also agree that the following redrafting of the language better conveys, to our contemporary ears, what our Declaration means to say:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that allmenpersons are created equal....
As a preliminary comment, it is worth noting that the statement does not claim that all American persons are created equal. My gosh, as written out in our Declaration of Independence, this statement would seem to apply to immigrants, too. Even "illegal" immigrants!
While we are all thinking about that, let me refer anyone reading this blog posting to a column in The Wall Street Journal, published on June 17, 2026. The column, by William A. Galston, is titled, "What 'Created Equal' Means in America."
To cut to the chase, the main thing to understand is that "equal" is not equivalent to "the same." That is the key to understanding what our Declaration of Independence is all about. We - persons in the world - are all "different." That is pretty much "self-evident." Given that we accept this self-evident truth, then what in the world is our Declaration trying to get at? How can that "all persons are created equal" assertion be justified or understood?
Check out Galston's exploration of this topic (and I note that clicking the link I provided above is supposed to let even non-subscribers read Galston's column). Galston is saying that we are all of "equal worth." I agree with that - but let me go just a bit further.
The Declaration of Independence was a statement, made more than 250 years ago, and its claims were made in the context of a political revolution. I read the Declaration as asserting that the only legitimate government is a government that must treat everyone "the same" when it comes to their participation in the task of self-government.
The Declaration obviously states a revulsion against any form of political discrimination - discrimination based on race, or gender, or wealth (or any other difference). We are not "equal" in the sense of "the same." Quite the contrary. We are all "different." But our Declaration of Independence says that the Americans who were separating themselves from the government of Great Britain, and from the English King who claimed a right to "rule," felt it appropriate to "declare the causes which impel them to the separation." Our Declaration outlines what was wrong with the King's government in England, and more than anything else, the problem the Declaration made clear in a general statement, before listing specifics - was that the King's government did not allow everyone to participate, equally, in the government that so profoundly impacted their daily lives and their future existence.
My own reading of The Declaration of Independence sees it as a statement about the kind of government to which the American Revolution aspired - and that those who pledged themselves to the revolution understood to be their objective.
"Self-government," was their objective. And self-government means (as Lincoln summed it up at Gettysburg) a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people."
The Declaration was "our" claim (our claim both collectively and individually) that the government that determines how our collective lives will be arranged must be a government that assigns an equal role to everyone in the decisions that will shape our future, and that determine our present.
I read The Declaration as a pledge of our individual and personal participation in making that happen, too.
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