The Age of Reason

John Tadros

History 111

9/18/17

The Age of Reason  

The enlightenment was a period of social and intellectual growth. It completely altered how people view the world, and it was coined the “Age of Reason”. To me this is very important; the ability to reason, and critically analyze things. That is what separates us from any other animal. A topic that I would like to highlight is the “immortal declaration” which emphasizes the well-known phrase, “all men are created equally”. This was a fairly new concept that helped establish the beginnings of the rights for slaves and women.

Before the Age of the Enlightenment, there was a belief that not all men were created equal at birth. Thomas Jefferson helped to create a new nation based on individual freedom and self-government. In 1776 the Declaration of Independence was adopted and it affected slaves in different ways. The declaration contains an apparent promise of liberty and equality, the only problem was that it was not enforced. Thomas Jefferson himself opposed slavery and even called it an “abominable crime,” however he himself and most of the founding fathers were lifelong slave holders. This is significant because it shows how difficult the process was to achieve equality for all men when even those who supported freedom were incapable of freeing their own slaves. Hypocritically, Jefferson still continued to support anti-slavery actions. In 1778 he introduced a Virginia law prohibiting the importation of enslaved Africans.

Women were also not considered equal to men. When Thomas Jefferson and those who helped him draft the Declaration of Independence described a new order among the thirteen colonies of the new United States, they did not include women. Under the laws of the new United States, women were denied property rights, lacked the ability to vote, and could not make or enter into a legal contract.  In colonial America, women were pushed to the sidelines as dependents of men. Married women were under control of their husbands, however the way Jefferson described equality was that the people should be “of equal moral worth, and as such deserve equal treatment under the law." This statement helped to open up the minds of the people in accepting that everyone should be treated the same.