Goal: Modernize "All Men" to "All People

Our country, wanting to build a democracy and giving power to the people, placed its ideals in The Declaration of Independence which states “All men are created equal” (Jefferson 236) and by the divine powers of God they are born with “certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” (Jefferson 236). When our founding fathers wrote and published this document in 1776, what they truly meant to say is that they believed that all the power should be in the hands of the white, wealthy men in society. Over the past 241 years, Americans have tried to modernize the connotation of “all men” to “all people”, but we are still falling short of that goal.

       

   Giving black males the right to vote through the 15^th amendment was one way Americans have attempted to modernize our ideals. Theoretically, by giving African Americans the right to vote, we as a country acknowledged that they are equals in society and their unalienable rights should be respected just as a white male’s rights would be. However, the Charlottesville race riots are a perfect example that not all people agree with the modernized version of the Declaration of Independence. The Neo-Nazis are stuck in the past and still believe that all the power in the United States should be given to the white, wealthy males denying the fact that African Americans are their equals in society. By denying this race their unalienable rights, white supremacist groups are making America hypocritical in its values and tearing the country apart through racial discrimination. These groups are holding America back by denouncing ideas our nation agree upon decades ago and not allowing America to move forward in widening the definition even further in hopes of one day making it “all people”.

          Women were also theoretically accepted as deserving of rights when given the right to vote through the 19^th amendment, yet they also struggle with not being considered as equal. Women have changed their role in society from being a housewife who blindly follows male authority to a male’s equal in that they can both think and provide for themselves. Some males seem to think this change has come too quickly because women with equal qualifications and comparable jobs still are payed less than males. Groups with authority want to keep the power within the workplace and country and therefore are finding ways to suppress women even though women are equally capable. Once again, we see that groups of people that are not willing to stray from the original ideal of “all men” are holding back our country’s advancement not only in its goal to change this connotation but in every aspect as women’s ideas are not being heard.

          We, as the citizens of democracy, need to use our power to advance our country and modernize our ideals as the world changes. We can not stay stagnate in our founding principles as the world does not slow down for anyone, and will pass America by if we do not make an effort to change with it. By accepting that in today’s society, “all men” should be modernized and considered as “all people”, we will be able to use our country’s diversity to our advantage and make America the best country it can possibly be.