Equality and Freedom - Only Under God

“All of us do not have equal talent, but all of us should have an equal opportunity to develop our talents” –John F Kennedy, June 6, 1963.

“We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal” is the one linchpin idea found in our Declaration of Independence that justifies all else that follows. It is so powerful a statement that it destroyed forever any previous pretensions of inherent familial, tribal, national, or racial superiority or inherent class distinctions. With those words “class” would henceforth only be perceived as a difference in wealth or behavior of peoples, never a difference of the intrinsic quality of their humanity.

Surely there are differences between people; reasoned equality in fact is non-existent. From experience we know people are not equally possessed of birthright, health, beauty, personal charm, talent, wealth or even intelligence. We see inequality all around us, yet our Founders saw equality as 'self-evident'.

This couldn’t be the result of common reason for what is self-evident of people is the very opposite of equality. No, the yearning for Equality came about through a moral ideal of equality that could only be seen through the eye of an enlightened reason - a revelation.

Bowing to the weight of Judeo-Christian religious tradition and common sentiment our Founders thought at first that Equality could be plausibly believed and accepted only if expressed in terms of a sacred imperative or mandate, like those of the Ten Commandments. In fact a first draft of the Declaration contained the term “we hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable” not “self-evident.”

But further conversation with Franklin, and consideration for the authoritarian issues of the day, convinced Jefferson and the Founders that they could best advance the ideal of freedom by actualizing the ideal of equality. They bound the two ideals in a special way, knowing equality at birth is freedom's necessary prerequisite.

Then the enlightened saw that the many, were also capable, in this Age, of seeing that individual  equality was indeed “self-evident.” This became so, first in America, a land founded by religious Pilgrims and born at the crest of the age of enlightenment. Equality made America the land of opportunity and individual freedom.

The religious ideal for humanity, the equality of all men under the Creator, had finally gained its fullest expression in secular society. But in a typical human contradiction, the gain was at first only an expression for some - but it came remarkably, in what was then undeniably a slave holding society and a slave driven economy.

Though imperfectly lived, “equality ” the perfect ideal, was the keystone in the Declaration of Independence that actualized the Articles, then the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and in time, the other “Rights” Amendments that guaranteed freedom of opportunity to all.
And our Founders were profoundly wise to declare opportunity to be the result of equality, not the reverse, because freedom of opportunity does not guarantee practical equality as a result.

And wiser still were they to acknowledge freedom to be a Creator given liberty. This alone guarantees that any eventuality of gross overpowering, over controlling, or over burdening of the individual by the State or other formulations of society, whether from benevolent or malevolent intent, can be justly repulsed by vote of the people or by means appropriate to regain that liberty.

With the right of freedom to act, to the credit of our Founders, it was their subsequent words,  “endowed by their Creator,” that gave final humble justification and the legal reality to “equal opportunity.” And it was then inevitable that the "inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” that followed, justified the creation of this great land and caused The United States of America to become the beacon of freedom, - the magnet of hope for peoples throughout the world.

President Eisenhower had it right in 1954, when he caused “under God” to be inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance. He knew, without exaggeration, that any government that thought itself  to be the supreme arbiter over the individual’s life, aspirations and pursuits, - would be a totalitarian government.

Let none put away what has been given us. Rights that are above human construct, and Dignity that deserves equal opportunity.