All men are created equal
[1] It reads: "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.
"Drawing from Enlightenment philosophy, the phrase reflects the influence of John Locke's second treatise on government, particularly his belief in the inherent equality and individual liberty.
"[4][5] The phrase is attested as early as pope Gregory the Great in book XXI of his Moralia in Job,[6] and was picked up by Thomas Aquinas,[7] Azo, Hervaeus Natalis, and other medieval thinkers.
[8] Thomas Jefferson, through his friendship with Marquis de Lafayette, was heavily influenced by French philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment, such as Voltaire, Rousseau and Montesquieu.
In 1773–1785, Filippo Mazzei, a physician, philosopher, diplomat, and author, published a pamphlet containing the phrase, which Jefferson incorporated essentially intact into the Declaration of Independence:[9][10][11] Tutti gli uomini sono per natura egualmente liberi e indipendenti.
Bisogna che ognuno sia uguale all'altro nel diritto naturale.Translated by Jefferson as follow: All men are by nature equally free and independent.
All men must be equal to each other in natural lawJefferson also may have been influenced by Thomas Paine's Common Sense, which was published in early 1776: In English history there exist earlier uses of nearly the same phrase.
First by the medieval priest John Ball who at the outbreak of the 1381 Peasants Revolt in his famous sermon posited the question "When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?"
[14] In 1776, the Second Continental Congress asked Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman to write the Declaration of Independence.
Nikole Hannah-Jones wrote in The New York Times that "the white men who drafted those words did not believe them to be true for the hundreds of thousands of black people in their midst.
He continued: "The comity of peoples in groups large or small rests not upon this chimerical notion of equality but upon fraternity, a concept which long antedates it in history because it goes immeasurably deeper in human sentiment.
"[35] The contradiction between the claim that "all men are created equal" and the existence of American slavery, including Thomas Jefferson himself owning slaves, attracted comment when the Declaration of Independence was first published.
[citation needed] In 1776, abolitionist Thomas Day wrote: "If there be an object truly ridiculous in nature, it is an American patriot, signing resolutions of independency with the one hand, and with the other brandishing a whip over his affrighted slaves.
[24] Also in defense of the phrase, Stanford University historian Jack Rakove said that the founders were not referring to the equality of individuals but to the right to self-government enjoyed by all peoples.
[41] The Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence, ratified in November 1965, is based on the American one, however, it omits the phrase "all men are created equal", along with "the consent of the governed".
