I believe the United States Declaration of Independence did not fulfill or acknowledge the rights of Native Americans and African Americans at all, as both racial parties didn’t have the right to freedom and equality.
African Americans and Native Americans didn't have the right to equality in society during 1815 to 1850. According to Document 2, (Highland, 1843) “Brothers, your oppressors try to make you as much like animals as possible.” This quote demonstrates the status African Americans had in society from 1815 to 1850. There were oppressors in society that brought down the African American people to the status of an unequal. This document demonstrates that due to circumstances like slavery and oppression, African Americans were still looked at as unequals even after they were released slaves. Even though slavery was becoming unlawful, there wasn’t much change to equality. According to Document 1,(President Andrew Jackson, 1835) “Many of your people have bought little or no land and you have no personal property, so how then can you live in the
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According to Document 5, (Anti-Slavery Almanac,1839) ¨Peter John Lee, a free colored man of Westchester Co., N.Y, was kidnapped by Tobias Boudinot, E. K. Waddy, John Lyon, and Daniel D. Nash of N.Y.,city, and hurried away from his wife and children into slavery.¨.This quote demonstrates that African Americans were not treated as free men, but still being kidnapped and forced back into slavery. As stated in the Preamble of the United States Declaration of Independence, ´´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.´´¨This shows that the Declaration of Independence fulfills the Ideals of freedom not for every man, but for white males.
African Americand as told by Abraham Lincoln, should uphold the same rights as others in the Declaration of Independence, but it is safe to say not everyone felt that way; prime example - the Klu Klux Klan. The Klan is a secret organization that used terror to intimidate African Americans and those who believed in their equality. African American homes, schools, churches, and places of business
Post-revolutionary war America was a period in which the citizens had access to the freedoms, under the Articles of confederation and later the constitution, they had longed for. With that being said these freedoms were not extended to every person born in the United States. The inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness granted by the Declaration of Independence were intended strictly for white men. During this time period both native people and African Americans were, for the most part left out of the discussion of freedom in the newly founded nation. With that being said the discrepancy in treatment between the two groups throughout the timeline of American History is far too large to ignore. This discrepancy, for the
The ideals of the Declaration were not fulfilled because the African American group did not have equal economic rights. The evidence that can be used to support my subclaim from document 2 is “If you want to be free this is your only hope. Unfortunately, there is not much hope of freedom without shedding blood. But, it is better to die as free men, than to live as slaves.” This evidence supports my subclaim because in Henry Highlands Garnets speech he is addressing that
In the mist of 1776-1877, did the United States carry out all the goals that were stated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution? The Declaration of Independence and Constitution had many different goals and ideas in mind for the United States at the time. The United States partially realized the some of the values stated in the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, but also did accomplish some the goals mentioned in the documents. The principles in the Declaration of Independence were applied to some, and the major goals in the Constitution were not wholly realized. Some of the goals that were partially realized were equality and women’s rights, some might say that these
From 1803 through 1850 westward expansion was occuring in the U.S. bringing a variety of issues along with the expansion of the country. As a result of westward expansion, Native Americans were being forced to leave their homes that their ancestors had lived on for thousands of years along with tensions increasing between the abolitionist North and the pro-slavery South due to slavery as well. Although many people were against slavery, white Americans still saw themselves as superior to other minorities including Native Americans and African Americans. During Westward Expansion from 1803-1850 “all men created equal” didn’t include anyone other than wealthy white men due to, Native Americans being removed and forced off their ancestral lands, and African Americans inferiorly viewed as property of white men because of their ethnicity.
Given these points connecting similarities and differences between the Declaration of Independence and the Letter from Birmingham Jail, this brings me into my main point about how the roles reversed. There was a role reversal as time went on in American history. Originally, it was the white population of America that was being oppressed but 340 years later, African Americans were the ones being oppressed by the white people for reasons that were far worse than those of which white people were being oppressed for originally. African Americans had to face unjust laws depriving them of their inalienable rights, they faced violence (lynching, burning, shootings) and exclusion from public goods and services. Furthermore, we still see common issues
For Howard Zinn, the Declaration of Independence seemed, abnormal. He is convinced that the Declaration was written for selfish reasons. He observes that the upper-class needs to induce the lower class. “It seemed clear to the educated, upper-class colonists that something needed to be done to persuade the lower class to join the revolutionary cause, to direct anger against England.” Alternatively, Bernard Bailyn has a disparate interpretation. Bailyn is convinced that the Declaration is written for ideological reasons. “The Declaration of Independence represents the colonists’ deepest fears and beliefs.” Quite frankly, they are both correct.
The Declaration of Independence was written so Americans could achieve this dream, but the African slave was never intended to be a part of this American Dream. To the African-American, there were and still are many restrictions that go along with the American Dream.
The United States of America declared their independence in 1776 when the number of slaves had risen to almost five hundred thousand. The Americans were under an oppressive administration in the revolutionary war era and this factor created an opportunity for African Americans to demand freedom in the reality of the revolution war. Nevertheless, even though Egalitarian principles were applicable to run the new born nation, there was continuous spread and expansion of slavery. Thus, freedom would mean white men and not blacks since only the whites were considered human.
In the Declaration of Independence it claimed that “all men are created equal.” but the people that wrote the constitution had different reasons why slavery was not included. The founding fathers had come up with several reasons why to allow slavery and also reasons why slavery doesn’t really matter.
In the Declaration of Independence it states that all men are created equal and are born with certain unalienable rights, however, this phrase is the least understood and most abused in America. In the past, most American communities were discriminated against based on their race specifically African-Americans and is still continuing today. Even after the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, many Americans failed to realize what ‘all men are created equally’ means. When the 13th amendment was created in 1865, it abolished slavery and involuntary servitude unless a punishment for crime. Although the 13th amendment did in fact abolished slavery, it still continued to demonstrate racial injustice to African-Americans which is morally wrong due to racial segregation ,racial tensions, and mass incarceration.
Although the Declaration of Independence stated that “All men are created equal,” the U.S Constitution denied minorities basic human rights, such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. With this, the line had been drawn. Skin color had now become the definite indicator of how race would be defined in future American society.
The management of the country club didn’t allow black people to play. Freedom, it’s a law that everyone has a right to follow. Everyone has freedom, including black and white people. As you can see, the Declaration of Independence has a point, freedom.
The Declaration of Independence (1776), written by only educated white men – Thomas Jefferson (Southern Colony), Benjamin Franklin (Middle Colony), and John Adams (Northern Colony) - established the basic rights that citizens were entitled to in a free country. However, this document contradicted the Constitution’s claim that all men were created equal, particularly in racial and gender identifiers such as slaves, Native Americans, and women. Slaves were essential in the economic development of the South. Most southerners considered slaves as property, only three-fifths of a man, and as a result, equality for
The American declaration of independence stated, that: “All men are created equal”. But in the 19th century only whites were born with equal opportunities. Africans were imported as slaves and had to work on the fields of the whites. Until 1865 the Negroes were treated and looked at as something lower than human. They were compared to apes, and therefore just owned the same rights as animals. They were raised believing that whites were superior. It took them years to realize that they have to stand up for their rights. The uprising turned into a brutal civil war.