![]() ![]() The tension separating the aspirations of the Declaration of Independence from the barbarism of slavery ultimately erupted in the U.S. 691 393).įrom the inception of the United States, then, a gulf has separated the Jeffersonian ideal of human equality from the reality of racial inequality under the law. Supreme Court placed its stamp of approval on the institution of slavery, holding that slaves were not "citizens" within the meaning of the Constitution, but only "property" lacking any constitutional protection whatsoever ( dred scott v. Very few laws protected slaves from abusive or maniacal masters, and those that did were seldom enforced. Only community mores, common sense, and individual conscience restrained slave owners. Slave owners, on the other hand, were free to do as they pleased, short of murdering their slaves. Slaves owed their masters an unqualified duty of obedience. Slave codes permitted slave masters to buy, sell, and lease blacks like Personal Property. Article I, Section 2, of the Constitution counted a slave as only three-fifths of a person for the purposes of representation in Congress. ![]() James Madison and the other Founding Fathers drafted a national constitution that protected the slave trade and recognized the rights of slave owners. Many Americans owned slaves, and most, including Jefferson himself, believed in the inferiority of the black race. The "peculiar institution" of Slavery was intricately woven into U.S. Yet the meaning of equality was neither obvious nor clearly defined. In 1776, Thomas Jefferson and the American colonists boldly announced the "self-evident" truth of human equality. ![]() The concept of equal protection and equality in the United States is as old as the country itself. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. The constitutional guarantee that no person or class of persons shall be denied the same protection of the laws that is enjoyed by other persons or other classes in like circumstances in their lives, liberty, property, and pursuit of happiness. ![]()
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