Idealists

Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot, anecdotally, about how the flaws of the country’s Founding Fathers make the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution flawed documents—that the statement “that all men are created equal” is the height of hypocrisy given that some of the Founding Fathers were slave owners.

The Founding Fathers were, in some ways, idealists; the Declaration of Independence and, to an extent, the Constitution were and are statements of ideals.

The ideals are valid. The fact that the Founding Fathers were imperfect individuals should in no way invalidate the perfection of the ideals contained in a document stating “that all men are created equal”.

Rather than discard it, we should seek to strive for the ideal.