Excerpt from America in Ferment National ideals and purposes change with the years, and so it has been in America. The patriot of 76 fought for freedom, but it was for freedom from oppression by rulers beyond seas. The Declaration of Independence, to be sure, proclaimed as a self-evi dent truth that all men are created equal; but this was merely a humanitarian idea borrowed by Thomas Jefferson from French philosophers, and it had little practical relation to the existing situation, though it was to serve as a goal for future aspiration. The Americans of that day were neither equal nor did they strive very vigorously to become so. Most states had property or religious tests for the voter and the otfice holder; slaves were held in every one of the original thirteen states; and in a large section Of society the idea prevailed that the rich, the well born, and the able ought to rule. The United States of the Revolutionary period was, in truth, but a shadow democracy. The Constitution itself was framed not in the interest of democracy alone, but of property as well, and it recognized the right of property in human beings. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.