Marquis de Lafayette:
[reading from the Dunlap Broadside of the Declaration of Independence, drafted by Thomas jefferson] "WE hold the?e Truths to be ?elf-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights".
French man 1:
Tous les hommes naissent-ils vraiment égaux, Monsieur Jefferson?
Translator:
Are all men created equal, Mister Jefferson?
French man 2:
Ou serait-il plus légitime de dire, « tous les blancs naissent-ils égaux »?
Translator:
Or should this read, "all white men are created equal"?
Thomas jefferson:
We allowed for certain differences that are not caused by the laws of men, but by those of nature. And though the Negro may or may not be inferior, his status in no way alters the wrongness of slavery. It is evil.
Marquis de Lafayette:
Yet your first draft, I believe, contained a clause on the abolition of slavery.
Thomas jefferson:
I considered it essential, but Congress struck it out of the final Declaration as being too particular.
French man 1:
La question de l'esclavage reste donc ouverte et non resolve, chez vous?
Translator:
So the question remains open with you and unresolved.
French man 2:
Votre révolution, Monsieur Jefferson, nous apparait comme incomplete.
Translator:
Your revolution, Mister Jefferson, appears to be incomplete.
Marquis de Lafayette:
Why did you omit the notion of property as one of those rights?
Thomas jefferson:
Well, while I hold the right of the individual to possess property as basic, I consider it as a means to human happiness, but not as an end in itself.
