All Men are Created Equal Essay

“All Men are Created Equal”“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,” thus President Abraham Lincoln began his landmark Gettysburg speech. The premise of “All men are created equal” underpins the concepts of liberty and democracy in our modern world. Today the idea of “All men are created equal,” which was originally enshrined in the American Declaration of Independence, is often used in the sense of “All men are equal.

” It has generally become a pretext to demand equal rights and equal treatment for all persons like. For example, a lazy tramp on the streets may console himself thinking that there is essentially not much of a difference between himself and the millionaire businessman living around the corner.He may even be consternated at the fact that people show respect to the millionaire and not to him, and may consider such a state of affairs to be unfair: since all men are equal, no person should be given privilege and consideration over and above any other. Ironically, the notion that serves as a foundation for the principles of liberty and democracy, and which President Lincoln used to undermine the rationale for slavery, thus becomes more like a basis for communism which seeks to abolish all differences between people. But people are different from one another, some have relatively superior capabilities and others have relatively inferior characteristics, otherwise, for instance why would there be job interviews, since any person is equal to any other, there is no need to choose one against other.“All men are created equal” simply means by and large there are no inherent and intrinsic differences between men, as well as between men and women, which would make one presumably superior to another in moral and spiritual status. However everyone is different from one another, in terms of practical considerations; these differences must be respected, and depending upon the situations, even encouraged. “All men are created equal” is a powerful truth.

But like most other truths it is liable to be misinterpreted, misunderstood and misused.  A liberal democracy should thrive not because there are no obvious differences between people, but mostly because of them, and sometimes in spite of them.