Is it Race or Class?
How History Links Jefferson to Trump in the Black Lives Matter Era
In the west, capitalism and chattel slavery have been entangled since their respective beginnings, and the question of race and class has endured since those times. As far as those two institutions in the US, I figured we should explore the words of one of the leading philosophers of the 18th century.
“All men are created equal.”
These words, as written by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence from The Crown, are usually seen as proof that the founders really were good men with an impeccable vision of future progress. They believed in the natural law that made Enlightenment philosophers like John Locke as famous now as they were back then. You’ve probably heard your favorite Conservative politician quote the founders, suggesting that society should be run now the according to the founders original intent.
Thomas Jefferson, the attorney, philosopher and politician, loved Lockean theory so much, that he plagiarized John’s noted self-evident truths of “life, liberty, and property,” but changed it just enough to not get expelled from Enlightenment University to “the pursuit of happiness.”
Locke believed the purpose of government was to secure and protect these natural rights. It was a…
