<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR> "All men are created equal" Does that apply only to Americans
or does that apply to every person on the planet American or not? [/quote]
As was noted, that's the Declaration, not the Constitution.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,--That to That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."[/quote]
Read the whole text
here.
The context makes plain that the Founders were not limiting the rights thus enumerated to men residing in a particular country at the time. Rather they were stating universal principles.
There really isn't any way to deny that by "men" they meant "white male adults." (The founders weren't perfect.)
However, "all" meant "all," not merely those individuals living in the British colonies in America.
The phrase, "are created equal" refers to the next clause: "they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights..." In other words, all men possess these rights in equal measure; no man has
more of a right to life than the next, and no man has
less of this right than another. They are equal in this sense.
It's important to note that this document
granted these rights to no one at all. It was their doctrine that rights are not granted by government, but by the Creator Himself.
In fact, neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution of the United States nor the Bill of Rights were considered to grant rights. In the founders' view, these documents merely listed rights already given by a higher authority than government.
The Declaration lays out what these men regarded to be their
duty in response to these "self evident" truths: they regarded it as their
duty to alter or abolish government that had become destructive of the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Summary:<UL TYPE=SQUARE>
<LI>the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were regarded as universal, not limited to people in any one time or place
<LI>the rights were regarded as belonging to all men equally -- not to belong to some men in greater measure and some in lesser measure
<LI>the rights were not regarded as gifts from a generous government but as unalienable essentials. The founders regarded these rights as un-take-away-able and fundamental; no matter what laws were passed, the essential
right to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness would remain unchanged
<LI>the rights resulted in a duty: the duty to reform or replace government that became destructive to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
<LI>the founders' response to the rights given to them by the Creator was to overthrow the government which was destroying these rights
</UL>
So the Declaration of Independence
declared that the signers were aware of both their freedom and their responsibility to alter an unjust government.
It declared that all men, everywhere, have the same freedom and the same responsibility to alter or abolish government that destroys these fundamental freedoms.
That all men, everywhere, have not performed this duty is irrelevant: the Declaration of Independence states the founders' belief that all men are given these rights equally and all men, equally, have these duties.
Hope that helps.
pax
"You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence." -- Charles Austin Beard
