By Rodney LaBruce

“I love America more than any other country in the world, and exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”
— James Baldwin

At the heart of American history lies a contradiction—one that has shaped every chapter of our national story. On paper, the United States was founded on the lofty idea that all men are created equal. But in practice, it was built to protect the property, status, and power of a select few.

It Started with the Dream

In 1776, the Declaration of Independence laid out the bold, revolutionary vision of a new nation. Written by Thomas Jefferson, it declared:

“All men are created equal… endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights… life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

It was idealistic. It was aspirational. It was a moral argument, not a legal one—meant to justify breaking away from British rule and to rally a diverse group of colonists around the idea of shared human dignity.

But the dream on paper would soon be tested by the reality of power.

Then Came the System

By 1787, the Revolutionary War was over, but the country was in chaos. Economic depression, political instability, and uprisings like Shays’ Rebellion made clear that the Articles of Confederation were too weak to hold the young nation together.

So, the founders reconvened and wrote a new document—the U.S. Constitution.

This time, the tone was different. It wasn’t about universal rights; it was about order, commerce, and control.

Many of the men who wrote the Constitution were wealthy elites—landowners, creditors, investors, and yes, slaveowners. Their concerns weren’t abstract theories about freedom; they were concrete anxieties about protecting their status and property. They worried about:

• How to prevent mobs of poor farmers from rising up and seizing property (as in Shays’ Rebellion)
• How to ensure contracts were enforced, even when they benefited the powerful
• How to regulate trade and taxation to benefit commercial interests
• How to build a government strong enough to suppress unrest, but not so democratic that the underclass could gain influence

Their version of “freedom” was carefully calculated—to secure their hold on power, not to extend it to everyone.

The Constitution addressed these concerns head-on, including:

• The Contracts Clause (Article I, Section 10)
• Electoral systems that filtered popular power (e.g., the Senate not directly elected)
• A federal government strong enough to enforce economic order

But what it didn’t include, intentionally, was any mention of equality or individual rights.

A Framework for Property, Not People

The Constitution was pragmatic and protective. It was designed to manage a real, divided society. And in doing so, it entrenched a new kind of hierarchy:

• It protected slavery, even counting enslaved people as 3/5 of a person for representation.
• It restricted voting to property-owning white men in most states.
• It provided no guarantees of free speech, religious freedom, or due process.

In short, the Constitution established the rules of the game—but left individual liberty off the table.

The Bill of Rights: A Patch, Not a Foundation

This omission caused backlash, especially from the Anti-Federalists, who feared that the new Constitution would give too much power to a central government without any safeguards for the people.

To win ratification, the Federalists made a promise: ratify the Constitution now, and we’ll add protections later.

And so, in 1791, the Bill of Rights was born.

It added the rights that the Constitution had left out:

• Freedom of speech, religion, and the press (1st Amendment)
• Protection from unlawful search and seizure (4th Amendment)
• The right to a fair trial (6th Amendment), and more.

But the fact that it had to be added later tells us something. The original blueprint for American governance was not built around the idea of universal liberty—it was built to stabilize power and protect wealth.

Declaration vs. Constitution: A Tale of Two Americas

Let’s be clear:

• The Declaration of Independence speaks to values: equality, liberty, and opportunity.
• The Constitution lays down systems: power, property, and control.

The result? America was founded on high ideals, but it was governed by institutionalized inequality.

This gap between the ideal and the real became the battlefield for every major justice movement in American history:

• Abolitionists pointed to the Declaration when confronting the Constitution’s slavery clauses.
• Suffragists and civil rights leaders used the Declaration’s language to expose how the system had failed them.
• And to this day, activists invoke those early words—“all men are created equal”—to remind the nation of its unfulfilled promises.

1854: When the 1% Held the Reins

Fast forward to 1854. At that point, the nation had drifted even further from its founding ideals.

Though only 1% of Americans were large slaveholders, this elite group wielded disproportionate power:

• The Senate gave equal representation to slave states, regardless of population.
• The White House was occupied by Franklin Pierce, a Northern Democrat aligned with Southern slaveholding interests.
• The Supreme Court was filled with justices appointed by pro-slavery presidents—soon to issue the infamous Dred Scott decision (1857), declaring Black Americans had no rights white men were bound to respect.

In that same year, Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, opening new territories to slavery and further appeasing the Southern elite.

So, while technically it wasn’t just slaveholders running every branch of government, in practical effect, they were.

The Slaveholder Mentality: A Legacy That Lives On

Whereas some would suggest that the slave mentalitylives on in certain communities—manifesting as internalized inferiority or learned helplessness—it’s just as important to recognize that the slaveholder mentality lives on, too. And in many ways, it’s far more dangerous.

Here’s the chilling truth: the men who built and benefited from America’s early systems of oppression believed their dominance was not just legal, but divinely ordained.

They believed:

• God had made them rich, and others poor, for a reason.
• Their status was evidence of their virtue.
• Society functioned best when the poor obeyed and didn’t ask questions.

This wasn’t just arrogance. It was weaponized theology and ideology—used to justify slavery, class hierarchy, and systemic inequality.

And it didn’t die with the Confederacy.

That same mindset has mutated across generations into more “acceptable” forms:

• Blaming the poor for being poor
• Criminalizing homelessness
• Opposing fair wages and labor protections
• Treating economic justice as a “special interest” instead of a national priority

Why This Still Matters Today

Too many Americans—across all racial and economic lines—still believe that fighting poverty is someone else’s problem. But here's what needs to be said:

If a system exists where poverty is acceptable, it will eventually come for you or your children.

The structures that protect inequality are still very much in place. And the people who benefit from them still believe—consciously or not—that they deserve their comfort, and others deserve their suffering.

Fighting for the poor isn't charity. It's self-defense.

It's a defense against a society that quietly teaches us to equate wealth with worth, and struggle with failure. It's a defense of democracy itself.

The Declaration gave us the dream.
The Constitution gave us the system.
The Bill of Rights tried to reconcile the two.

But it’s up to us to finish the job.