At the nation’s inception, when the Declaration of Independence declared “All Men Are Created Equal,” it didn’t include slaves, or women, neither of which could vote. The statement was originally set forth to assert that the colonists, as a people, had the right to self-government. It was only in the decades after the American Revolution that the phrase acquired its reputation as a statement of individual equality. The immorality of slavery and the inequality of women were just two of the many contradictions that would then develop.
