What Jefferson really meant by the words ‘all men’

Chapter four of Michael Kranish’s Nov. 9 Revolutionary Revelations series, “The Paradox of Philadelphia,” was illuminating, but there was no “paradox” in the Declaration of Independence. Karnish takes literally what Thomas Jefferson meant when he wrote “all men are created equal.” But to assume that the American revolutionaries had egalitarian aims within a “pure democracy” is presentist fallacy.