Jefferson's World
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." This was the start to Lincoln's famed Gettysburg address. The reference that the United States was created under the ideals of all men being created equal was in reference to The Declaration of Independence. "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal..." Wrote Thomas Jefferson. When Jefferson wrote the constitution, he thought about many questions: What is a good country? How should people live together as a nation? Should this new country have a monarchy or republic? How do we address slavery? Interestingly, at the time he was attended by a slave servant, Bob Hemmings, who served him tea as he worked (Sirene 37-38). The question we can ask ourselves today is; was the United States truly based on these statements? I believe this answer to be yes because the thoughts of the culture then have no relevance to the current culture that we live in today. Ethical egoism made him "hold [his] truths to be self-evident." Our culture has developed through time. People are open-minded and over time their
Today when we think of the Declaration of Independence, we think of a moral foundation. When he wrote the Declaration of Independence, he was a hypocrite by today's standards, but if you look at the culture that, he was living in, he was not a hypocrite. I believe this could happen under the ERA. Through open-mindedness, we have evolved into today's culture of accepting African Americans as equals. Realizing that my way of thing was behind the times, I would not criticize homosexuals publicly. Times were different in 1776 and so were the attitudes on Slavery. When Lincoln made that famed speech in 1863, Lincoln never puzzled over whether or not Jefferson was ethical. ------------------------------------------------------------------------**Bibliography**. " People of African descent were believed to be a lesser race and were of a slave class. The reason for the difference is as James Rachels describes: "Different cultures have different moral codes.
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Acceptance Essays
