The first sentence of The Declaration of Independence begins, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…”  Many people stop right there and think, “huh?”  I mean, I can’t play basketball as well as Michael Jordan.  I can’t run like Usain Bolt.  I can’t sing like Luciano Pavarotti.  I’m too big to be a jockey and too small to be an offensive lineman.  You get my point.  People are different.  Obviously.  Perhaps Jefferson misspoke.  Perhaps he intended to say, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created unequal…”  Stupid auto-correct.  But regardless of why, that’s exactly what he said.

Perhaps he was trying to express the Christian belief that we are all equal before God.  That would make sense.  But that’s not what he said.  The rest of the document is very clear in its meaning.  It seems unlikely that Jefferson just goofed up.  Well, no biggie, right?  It’s just a nice platitude to get the Declaration rolling – like singing The National Anthem before a baseball game, right?  Whatever.

Right.  Well, maybe not.  I think this has created a real problem in our society.  Since we’re all created equal, then any difference in outcome must be the result of some form of unfairness.  The playing field must not be level, otherwise, a bunch of equal people would be equally successful, right?  It must be racism, or sexism, or some other form of discrimination.  That’s the only thing that makes sense, obviously.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, when the study of Darwin led to ‘scientific consensus’ that eugenics was obviously true, many people took that as proof that America was built on a lie, and could not last for long.  Before the Civil War, there were some in the South who defended secession using similar reasoning.  In the late 1700s, many kings around the world predicted that the American Experiment would crash and burn quickly, because of this apparent defect in its founding.

As America outlawed slavery and gave full citizenship rights to women, blacks, and everybody else, the country became better and better.  Rather than falling apart as some anticipated, America has been strengthened by acknowledging the worth of every individual.  As each individual citizen was freed up to achieve whatever they could with the talent, work ethic, and opportunities available to them, then America as a country became wealthier, happier, and more powerful.  It’s the greatest success story of all time.

But now we’ve moved past the Civil Rights movement.  With the push for reparations, critical race theory, affirmative action, and various other wealth / power transfers, America seems to be paralyzed into compliance.  I think part of the reason is that if we are all created equal, than any inequality must be due to unfairness.  And that unfairness must be corrected.  That’s the whole point of government, right?

Now, a modern American conservative would say that the government’s job is to provide equal opportunities, so that citizens of varying abilities and talents can make the most of their potential, whatever that is.

But that’s not what Jefferson said.  He said that we are all created equal.  It’s a lovely sentiment, even it if it is clearly untrue, which would become clear if I ever tried to play one on one with Michael Jordan.  And since we’re all created equal, then the fact that Michael Jordan is wealthier than I am is clearly the result of some sort of unfairness.  Right?

But I think that this lovely sentiment may be creating real problems for us now.

I wonder what Jefferson meant by that?  I presume he meant that we all had equal worth before God, but if that’s the case, why didn’t he just say that?  Jefferson was not a sloppy writer.  And you don’t begin the founding document of your new country with sloppy writing.  Surely he gave that first sentence some thought, and he said precisely what he intended to say.  As he did in everything else he wrote.

So why did he say that?

Does it matter that our country is founded, at least partially, on a statement that is obviously not true (beautiful and optimistic though it may be…)?

I wrote a piece on this topic a couple years ago, and when I couldn’t get it to make any sense, I dumped it.  I do that a lot.

Anyway, last week I listened to Steven Hayward & Michael Anton debating this topic on a podcast.  I was somewhat gratified to learn that I wasn’t the only one who wondered about this, and even scholars like Hayward and Anton couldn’t get it to make sense, either.  And neither could Jaffa or Strauss or Lincoln.  So if nothing else, I’m in good company.

So I tried once again to get something coherent out of this mess.  I failed again, shrugged, and hit ‘publish.’  Sorry about that.

This seems a bit esoteric.  But I don’t think it is.

I look forward to hearing your perspective.  Am I placing too much importance on one sentence (even if it is the opening statement of our Declaration of Independence)?

Is this apparent glaring flaw in reasoning important to current events, or to the structure of our society?

If so, can it be reasoned out?

Thanks in advance for your help on this…