Principle #6 – All Men are Created Equal
Psalms 8:4-5 “What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.”
One of the self-evident truths that our Founding Fathers talked about was that all men were created equal, but since each one created is unique how then can they be equal?
Men were created equal in the sight of God; that means, in the sight of the law and in the protection of their rights. According to Clarence Carson, a Constitutional writer, “There are no classes of people created by law, but are all equal before God and secondly, each man has an equal title to God.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s philosophy was that all men were designed to be equal. (You can read more about Rousseau’s philosophy on our web site menwithfaith.com under teaching and the title ARE WE LOSING THE WEST.)
John Adams was in France when Rousseau was teaching and commented: “To teach that all men are born with equal powers and faculties, to equal influence in society, to equal property and advantages through life, is as gross a fraud, as glaring an imposition on the credulity of the people, as was practiced by monks, by Druids, by Brahmins, by priests of the immortal Lama, or by the self-styled philosophers of the French Revolution.”
Equal rights for the Founding Fathers was for society to provide ‘equal justice,’ which means protecting equally the rights of the people. So in a just society what are our rights? In this regard the Founding Fathers mention several things:
- in the courts to secure their rights
- at the ballot box to vote for our choice
- in the public school to obtain an education
- to be able to compete for a job
- to be able to purchase a home or to rent
- in our churches to be able to have freedom of religion
- it also means the freedom of speech and be able to present views on the issues of today
- to be able to peacefully assemble
- to enjoy freedom of the press
- to be able to buy essentials for life and enjoyment
- to be able to save and prosper
- to pay no more than their fair share of taxes and the ability to be able to pass on to our heirs what we have
One of the problems that our Founding Fathers faced in our society is the problem of minorities, because equal rights have not been completely established in all of these areas for minorities, but the Founders set a course in providing balance in administering justice in the equality of rights like no other country at that time. The breakdown in our society is not the problem of equal justice, but the treatment of minorities.
Minorities in any country call themselves outsiders who want to be insiders. When it comes to America every ethnic group in this country at one time once was a minority. We are a nation of minorities. We are and have been a melting pot. When you talk about an American who are you referring to? Even my own back ground is German and Irish and my wife is Finnish, but we identify as Americans.
Because of this principle that “all men are created equal” we have a society of freedom and opportunity which have attracted people (immigrants) from all over the world and it is remarkable that within two or three generations these immigrants have become first class citizens. To do this they had to cross the “cultural gap,” which means learning the English language and at the least get a general education.
There is not a single ethnic group in the United States that at one time was not treated as a minority and less than a first class citizen. My wife was reading to me an article that was written by a Finnish young person who had come to the States and what they endured to eventually fit in. It is a fascinating story to read about the French in the 1500s, the English in the 1600s and in between the Swedes, Germans, Irish, Scots, etc. In this melting pot there were tensions, discrimination, malice and sometimes outright persecution, but because of an overriding principle that “all men are created equal” they joined together to fight in the Revolutionary War and to create what we call the United States of America.
A danger that I see developing here in the States is that we are losing the idea of this very important principle of truth that “all men are created equal,” and the outcome is a nation that has become divided.