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Are All Men Equal ?
The Negro slaves at the bottom of the scale had very little chance to better themselves. They were slaves for life, and
even in those few cases where they were set free, nevertheless, their black skins kept them from ever rising far. With them,
as with the indentured servants, everything depended on the type of master they had; a kind master might mean a good
comfortable home without much worry, which was more than many poor whites could look forward to. A cruel master might
mean horrible punishment, a wretched life, and a miserable death.
But wasn't this division into classes the same sort of thing that many of these people objected to in the Old World? Yes, it was a system modeled after that in Europe. The idea that a small group of rich people, the aristocracy, should run the government and make the laws had long been in practice there. It was true that the distinctions were not as sharp, that here in the colonies you could rise from one class to another more quickly than you could in Europe. That was a very important difference, but, nevertheless, until you climbed to the top of the heap yourself, you were ruled from above. The wealthy upper classes made the laws so it's easy to see why those laws favored the rich.
Did no one challenge the right of the rich to manage things? The small farmers who had the right to vote sometimes did. But the real challenge came from the frontier. The frontiersmen demanded a say in running things. They demanded the right to help make the laws for themselves. The American idea of all men being equal first came from the frontier. This idea had been talked of in Europe before, but it was first put into practice in America. It was a very , very important notion which later affected the whole world.
Where the last settlement ended and the wilderness began , where the edge of civilization met the beginning of savagery, this was the frontier line. Here at the farthest clearing, land was either free or very cheap. Here where the wilderness came right up to your door you could start life all over again.
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