‘All men are created equal.’ So wrote Thomas Jefferson, and so agreed with him the delegates from the American colonies. But we must not press them too closely nor insist on the literal interpretation of their words. They were not publishing a scientific treatise on human nature nor describing the physical, intellectual, and moral qualities of different races and different individuals, but they were bent upon a practical object in politics. They desired to sustain before the world the cause of independence by such appeals as they thought would have effect; and certainly the appeal to the sense of equal rights before God and the law is the most powerful that can be addressed to the masses of any people. This is the very essence of American democracy, that one man should have just as large opportunity as any other to make the most of himself, to come forward and achieve high standing in any calling to which he is inclined. To do this the bars of privilege have one by one been thrown down, the suffrage has been extended to every man, and public office has been opened to any one who can persuade his fellow-voters or their representatives to select him.’
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John R. Commons (1862–1945) was an American institutional economist, Georgist, progressive and labor historian at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
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