ALL men are created equal, etc., etc. Pretty clear and not suspect to much interpretation.
If you accept it as the basic principle of America, and at the same time defend the practice of slavery, you have only two logical options.
1) You can deny that those who are enslaved are “really” men, heading off down the road that leads to Auschwitz.
2) You can decide that the Founders were mistaken. All men are NOT created equal. As for instance, Calhoun and Stephens defended so eloquently. Of course, once you accept this argument, there is no particularly logical reason to assume that black/white is the only divider between the unequals. Why not rich/poor, nobly vs. ignobly born, etc.
Which of course gets us right back to the world most of humanity has always lived in.
I personally think that the DoI had a short-term negative effect on the interaction of Americans with both blacks and Indians. Since both were obviously not equal to white men, they couldn’t really be men at all, so must be some species of animals with no rights that “real” men had any obligation to respect, as Taney put it.
Only two categories allowed, men and not-men. And not-men could never become men, as Taney also said.
Meanwhile, the Spanish tradition provided for an infinite variety of gradations of status and freedom and rights between the slave and the King. In Latin America the slave or native could be viewed as simply an inferior man, not as some sort of talking animal.
You would think so, but the History says otherwise.
If you accept it as the basic principle of America, and at the same time defend the practice of slavery, you have only two logical options.
No one is defending the practice of slavery. I am pointing out that it was legal, and that the Declaration of Independence was not intended to change that condition.
I regard this as admitting unpleasant truths.