The Declaration of Independence is the statement

Second, in your own words (but using proper grammar), in the next five pages, analyze and address the following:

The Declaration of Independence is the statement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at the Pennsylvania State House (Independence Hall) in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776. It announced that the thirteen American colonies, then at war with Great Britain, regarded themselves as thirteen newly independent sovereign states, and no longer under British rule. Furthermore, it announced the formation of a new nation—the United States of America.

The second sentence of the Declaration proclaimed:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

With the Declaration, Thomas Jefferson and the Second Continental Congress had represented to the world that the new nation believed that equality of men was so apparent that it was “self-evident”. However, when the Constitution was drafted and then eventually ratified, there was no mention of equality of men anywhere in it. The closest the Constitution comes to referring to equality is in the Fourteenth Amendment, which was ratified in 1868. The Fourteenth Amendment contains a clause stating that “no state shall . . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” In other words, the closest the Constitution comes to guaranteeing or advocating equality is the Fourteenth Amendment’s declaration that the states must provide all people equal treatment under the law. Jefferson was referring to political “equality” in the Declaration of Independence and the Congress was referring to the legal system in the Fourteenth Amendment’s mandate that the states do not deny equal protection to persons within their jurisdiction.

So how has the United States performed with regards to ensuring equality of our citizens under the government created by the Constitution? How about with regard to state governments? Have the state governments been committed to equal protection of all citizens?

Consider the opinion of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney of the United States Supreme Court in Dred Scott v. Sandford in 1857, the majority opinion of Justice Henry B. Brown in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, and the opinion of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in the 1927 Supreme Court decision in Buck v. Bell. In those three opinions, does it seem to you that they reflected a commitment by the Supreme Court to equality of Americans? Read about Operation Wetback, the United States government’s program in 1954 that gave rise to arrests and deportations by the U.S. Border Patrol which included civil rights violations. Several hundred United States citizens were illegally deported without being given a chance to prove their citizenship. Were Mexican-Americans and other citizens of Hispanic or Latin ancestry treated with equality to other Americans? Read about the internment of Japanese-American citizens during World War II. Were they treated equally to other Americans during that period?

Is George Orwell’s sarcastic statement in Animal Farm an accurate description of what exists in America today: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” Rephrasing it: “All Americans are equal, but some are more equal than others.” Is that what exists in the United States in 2017? If you think it is, then tell me why you think so. What is the status of equality of citizens in America in 2017, based on your readings and you own personal observations?

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