DRAFT
No. Thomas Jefferson and His Declaration of Independence Do NOT Deserve Praise for Supposedly Giving Some Good Ideas to the World
by John Spritzler
July 31, 2026
We've been told it over and over again in our American schools and by our American establishment that the American Founding Fathers and in particular Thomas Jefferson gave the world new and wonderful ideas in the Declaration of Independence, with its famous line:
"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 secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
But what we've been told is false. It is one of many ways that the American ruling billionaire plutocracy tries to make us, the have-nots whom it treats like dirt, honor and respect and admire its upper class forebears, who were the Jeff Bezoses and Elon Musks and Bill Gateses of 1776, as I have written about in detail in my "The U.S. "Founding Fathers" Were Enemies of 'We the People.'"
As I will show, whatever wonderful ideas are in the Declaration of Independence are ideas that were held, and acted upon, by masses of ordinary people long before Thomas Jefferson was even born. In fact, it is precisely for this reason that the Founding Fathers told the public that their fight for independence against the British Crown was for these widely popular ideas. This is how the Founding Fathers aimed to get maximum support for their American Revolution against the British monarchy.
But as I show in my above-linked article, as soon as the Founding Fathers won the war of independence they turned viciously against the have-nots (including the subsistence farmers who fought in George Washington's revolutionary army) and made crystal clear to the have-nots that they had nothing but contempt for them and for the noble-sounding rhetoric about liberty and equality that the have-nots took so seriously.
Let's now take a close look at the famous sentence in the Declaration of Independence and see how widely known and acted-upon, long before Thomas Jefferson was even born, were these ideas.
"All men are created equal"
John Ball, who led the English Peasant Rebellion in 1381 preached that:
"things cannot go right in England...until goods are held in common and there are no more villeins and gentlefolk, but we are all one and the same." [Life in a Medieval Village, by Frances and Joseph Gies, p. 198, my emphasis]
Gerrard Winstanley (born 1609) wrote:
Whosoever labours the Earth for any Person or Persons, that are lifted up to rule over others, and doth not look upon themselves, as Equal to others in the Creation: The hand of the Lord shall be upon that Laborer: I the Lord have spoke it, and I will do it.
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That we may work in righteous∣ness, and lay the Foundation of making the Earth a Common Treasury for All, both Rich and Poor, That every one that is born in the Land, may be fed by the Earth his Mother that brought him forth, according to the Reason that rules in the Creation. Not Inclosing any part into any particular hand, but all as one man, working together, and feeding together as Sons of one Father, members of one Family; not one Lording over another, but all looking upon each other, as equals in the Creation; so that our Maker may be glorified in the work of his own hands, and that every one may see, he is no respecter of Persons, but equally loves his whole Creation, and hates nothing but the Serpent, which is Covetousness, branching forth into selvish Imagination, Pride, Envie, Hypocrisie, Vncleanness; all see∣king the ease and honor of flesh, and fighting against the Spirit Reason that made the Creation; for that is the Corruption, the Curse, the Devil, the Father of Lies; Death and Bondage that Serpent and Dragon that the Creation is to be delivered from. [ in The True Levellers Standard A D V A N C E D: or, The State of Community opened, and Presented to the Sons of Men, and related writings, my emphases]
Note that Thomas Jefferson and the Founding Fathers never even hinted that women should be viewed as the equals of men and hence have the right to vote.
But long before Thomas Jefferson was even born, American Indians embraced the idea that women were the equal of men when it came to having a real say--a vote--in important social/governmental decisions. Read in this Wikipedia article one example of this:
The Haudenosaunee Confederacy is believed to have been founded by the Great Peacemaker at an unknown date estimated between 1450 and 1660, bringing together five distinct nations in the southern Great Lakes area into "The Great League of Peace".[41]
When Europeans first arrived in North America, the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois League to the French, Five Nations to the British) were based in what is now central and west New York State including the Finger Lakes region, occupying large areas north to the St. Lawrence River, east to Montreal and the Hudson River, and south into what is today northwestern Pennsylvania. At its peak around 1700, Haudenosaunee power extended from what is today New York State, north into present-day Ontario and Quebec along the lower Great Lakes–upper St. Lawrence, and south on both sides of the Allegheny Mountains into present-day Virginia and Kentucky and into the Ohio Valley. From east to west, the League was composed of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca nations.
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Unanimity in public acts was essential to the Council. In 1855, Minnie Myrtle observed that no Haudenosaunee treaty was binding unless it was ratified by 75% of the male voters and 75% of the mothers of the nation.[151] In revising Council laws and customs, a consent of two-thirds of the mothers was required.[151] The need for a double supermajority to make major changes made the Confederacy a de facto consensus government.[152]
The women traditionally held real power, particularly the power to veto treaties or declarations of war.[151] The members of the Grand Council of Chiefs were chosen by the mothers of each clan. If any leader failed to comply with the wishes of the women of his tribe and the Great Law of Peace, the mother of his clan could demote him, a process called "knocking off the horns". The deer antlers, an emblem of leadership, were removed from his headgear, thus returning him to private life.[151][153]
Councils of the mothers of each tribe were held separately from the men's councils. The women used men as runners to send word of their decisions to concerned parties, or a woman could appear at the men's council as an orator, presenting the view of the women. Women often took the initiative in suggesting legislation.[151]
Note that Thomas Jefferson and the Founding Fathers, all either slave-owners or friends of and business associates with slave-owners, never even hinted that slavery should be abolished. They never said that "all men" included non-white people as well as female people!
But long before Thomas Jefferson was even born, pirates DID say that "all men are created equal" included female and non-white people. You can watch a TEDx talk video here discussing this.