You come across as one of the great ignoramuses of all time. It's simple, the slaves were not considered to be equal to the citizens of that day. They were not considered in all the rights and liberties recognized in our original constitution and Bill of Rights.
And, surprise, slavery had been practiced since recorded history and before. Nothing unique about the fact that it was practiced in the USA. Surely you know it was practiced in Africa where American slaves came from, and that Africans owned slaves, and captured and sold slaves. Did you know that? It sounds as if you did not.
But these rights and liberties in the US Constitution had never been extended to any men, anywhere, until it was done at the founding of the US. Do you have any clue under what circumstances most lived under on this earth up until Jefferson's time?
But, try real hard here, the recognition of these rights and liberties by a government for its citizens was a remarkable achievement and step forward at that time. It gave others an example to consider, and it gave the decendents of slaves a constitution they could look to and petition that it also be applied to them.
Are you really so ignorant of history, and how freedoms have developed slowly over the centuries and millennia, that you can't see the remarkable advances that took place at the founding of the USA?
I agree.
While there were great thoughts of all of our founding fathers, there was also a degree of pragmatism. The Revolution was enabled by the ‘time’. At another time, it may not have been pulled off.
In writing the Declaration, Jefferson made the case for that being the ‘time’ with:
“But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government and to provide new Guards for their future Security.”
With regard to slavery, much of the same sensibilities were present as to the ‘condition’ but he also knew the ‘time’ wasn’t right to act. For one, there wouldn’t have been any Constitution and he was of this mind (in a letter to Jean Nicolas DeMeunier, 1786):
“... they (Virginia Legislature) saw that the moment of doing it (emancipation) with success had not yet arrived, and that an unsuccessful effort, as too often happens, would only rivet still closer the chains of bondage, and retard the moment of delivery to this oppressed description of men.”
There’s more to the letter and it’s worth a read:
http://www.wfu.edu/~zulick/340/Jefferson.html
Although I don’t think that slavery was the main issue in the War between the States, one could make a good case that @60 years after Jefferson wrote that, that the ‘moment’ had not yet arrived.
What a charmer, you.
It's simple, the slaves were not considered to be equal to the citizens of that day. They were not considered in all the rights and liberties recognized in our original constitution and Bill of Rights.
And where are we in disagreement? Jefferson who wrote that all men are created equal -- and in the first draft of the Declaration of Independence actually had the chutzpah to blame the King for creating slavery -- in fact believed nothing of the sort. Jefferson preached equality but did everything in his power to preserve (and expand) slavery, deny equality to city dwellers, deny equality to immigrants, and murder Indians. He was a hypocrite and saying "the slaves were not considered to be qual to the citizens" only proves my point. He did not believe all men were created equal, or, if he did, he acted in a way that indicated he did not.