The Declaration of 1776 outlined the Founders moral vision of a free society; its most important statement: “that all Men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” A 250-year study of American history shows what a profound vision that was!
Although the word “slavery” will not be found in the Declaration, it dominated much of the debates among our Founders as it drove the economic engines of the Southern states and required several compromises in drafting the U.S. Constitution in 1788.
Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution originally drafted stated that “Representatives and Taxes shall be apportioned among the states according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by the number of free Persons.” The Southern states wanted to include slaves, whereas the Northern states wanted them excluded. The “heated” compromise was to count only 3/5ths of the slaves, but they had to be called “other persons” as the North didn’t want to validate slavery nationally as it “was dishonorable to the American character.
President Thomas Jefferson and Congress passed a law banning international slave trade in 1808. However, slavery continued to grow in the South.
In 1857 the Supreme Court ruled in Dred Scott v. Sandford that Blacks were not citizens but were inferior.
In 1861 the Civil War between the states erupted. President Abraham Lincoln knew America was a “house divided” because of slavery, and in 1862 issued the Emancipation Proclamation and in1863 delivered his Gettysburg address stating: “Our fathers brought forth this new nation—dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal—now we are engaged in a great civil war” for this proposition. By 1865 the war was over and all slaves were free (but not yet equal).
By 1870 America had modified the Constitution to end slavery and promise equal citizenship to all with the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. However, “The Compromise of 1877” was required for the Southern Democrats to acknowledge Mr. Hayes, a Northern Republican, as President if the southern states had the right to deal with the new African American citizens in their states—which resulted in African Americans in the south losing many of their rights. In 1896 the Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that the Louisiana law “separate-but-equal facilities” for African Americans and Whites was constitutional, thereby allowing racial segregation until overturned in 1954. In 1963 Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” address calling for a nation in which his children would not “be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” had a profound effect on America.
It is essential that we understand the true “Free and Equal” story.
Steve Gardes is a retired Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and Certified Valuation Analyst (CVA) with over 40 years of public accounting experience.
