In what was known in the 18th century as the New World, a group of British colonies rebelled along the Atlantic coast, due to their lack of representation in the British Parliament and the increased taxes on them.
The colonists in America fought a war against Britain in what is known as the American Revolutionary War in 1775, and those colonies managed to win, then adopted the Declaration of Independence from the British Crown on July 4, 1776.
The First Continental Conference adopted the American Declaration of Independence written in a document consisting of 7 articles, and the document eloquently expressed the reasons that led the colonies to declare independence from Britain, and made it clear that all people have certain rights, including their right to change or overthrow any government that robs their rights .
The historian at Stanford University, Jack Rakoff, says that the document that included the phrase "all men were created equal" was a call to the right to establish a state rather than protect individual liberties, as it comes to mind, but after the American Revolution people interpreted it as a liberal promise of individual equality, Which was not true.
Sophisticated interpretations
With each generation interpreting the content of the document, the significance of the words expressed in the Declaration of Independence expanded beyond what the founding fathers of the United States originally intended when they adopted the historical document, says Rakoff in an interview with the Stanford University website.
And the American academic considers that when the Continental Congress adopted the historical text drafted by the legal man Thomas Jefferson, he did not mean to mean individual equality. Instead, what they announced was that American colonists - as a people - had the same rights to self-rule as other countries and countries.
"And because they have this basic right, they can create new governments and enjoy their separate and equal status with other countries." It was only in the decades after the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) that the phrase gained its new connotation as an affirmation of individual equality.
Rakoff - who is a professor of American history and studies and a professor of political science at Stanford University's School of Humanities and Science - considers that realizing what has happened benefits a better understanding of the failures of previous US governments, at a time when division is increasing and the legacy of slavery and racial injustice is growing.
His book "The Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in Making the Constitution" (1996) won a Pulitzer Prize in History, while his new book "Beyond Faith, Beyond Conscience: The Root Importance of Practicing Free Religion" next month will be published.
Slavery and slaves
In his answer to a question regarding the relationship of the problems of the United States today to the Declaration of Independence and the first United States Constitution, the American academic said that he considers the Declaration a starting point and a promise and obligations, some of which are of concern; Although it recognized rights such as the right to revolution and the right to establish new legitimate governments, it may include a set of political obligations that establish the legal status of slavery and servitude within the states.
Rakov quotes his late colleague Don Frenbacher, who specializes in American studies, that the first American constitution was heavily involved in the creation of the "Republic of Slave Owners," which protected slavery in complicated ways until 1861.
But the amendments of the period 1865-1870 amounted to a second constitutional foundation that was based on other foundations, as it developed a broader definition of equality as part of the constitutional system, and gave the US government an effective role in combating racial inequality within the states, according to his estimate.
Rakoff says that the desire to exploit labor was a central feature of most colonial societies in the Americas, especially those that relied on the export of precious commodities such as sugar, tobacco, rice and cotton, as cheap labor was the decisive factor that made these goods very profitable, and farmers did not care who provided them either. They were indigenous, white servants, or African slaves.
Ethical questions
To say that this system of exploitation was morally corrupt, requires one to determine when moral arguments against slavery begin to emerge. The American historian says that two factors opposing slavery morally must be recognized, but that they did not emerge until after 1750, as one of them came from radical Protestant denominations such as the Quakers (Religious Friends Association) and Baptists, who realized that exploitation of slaves was inherently wrong.
The other came from the revolutionaries who admitted - as Jefferson argued in his memoirs about Virginia - that the act of owning slaves per se would lead to "continuous tyranny" and would destroy slave owners' ability to act as Republican citizens. In other words, the moral corruption that Jefferson was concerned about was what would happen to slave owners who would become victims of "their tumultuous emotions."
But the major problem facing Jefferson - which many contemporary critics ignore - is that he cannot imagine how black and white peoples could coexist as free citizens in one republic.
Jefferson assumed - in elemental racist terms - that differences between peoples would govern this relationship as well, and he believed that Americans of African descent should be liberated, but that they should be colonized elsewhere.
This is an aspect of Jefferson's thinking that would be frustrating, Rakoff said, however, we also have to realize that he was "trying to really deal with a real problem."
Rakov stresses that there is no history of the origins of American slavery that could "satisfy our moral conscience today, but as I have repeatedly tried to explain to my students at Stanford, the task of thinking historically is not about issuing moral judgments about people in the past. A condemnation, however justified, will never be interpreted. Why did people act in the past in this or that way, and that is the real challenge for us as historians. "
Basic principles
The United States independence document included many innovations and principles, including: declaring that all people were created on an equal footing, and that they had rights that the Creator loved them, which cannot be disposed of, including “the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”, and that people have the right to choose Their governments, "and that" to secure these rights, governments were established, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. "
The declaration reflected the thoughts of many thinkers and philosophers of this period about the principles of freedom and political and social justice, including the English-born writer Thomas Bean and John Locke, in addition to what was advocated by the supporters of the independence movement.
The document was distinguished by a linguistic rhetoric that impressed the Americans, and motivated European citizens to push their governments towards more democracy, as well as modern peoples who yearned for independence and democracy.
On July 4 of every year, it is a national holiday and a special occasion for the American people, and it is an official holiday in the country.