What prompted Jefferson to write the quote all men are created equal???????????????????

Question

wen he was a slave owner....

Answer 1

He borrowed the phrase from the English philosopher John Locke. In the Declaration of Independence, he was writing for the 1776 white men of property who had all the power. They would never have understood a phrase such as all humans - regardless of sex or skin color - are created equal.
People could barely comprehend that being born to a royal family did not make a person better than others - just richer.

It seems impossible to believe these days, but darker skinned people were not considered the same a lighter skinned "men". The reason he says "men" is that women were hardly considered at all. It was a man's world.
It is amazing how screwed up our ancestors were by today's standards - though they might think we are hopelessly wrong to consider all humans as equal regardless of skin pigmentation or hormonal milieu.
Women have only achieved equality very recently in human history - and not in all cultures of the world.

Answer 2

Maybe he meant they were created equal by the Almighty but he didn't necessarily agree with it.

Answer 3

Because he believed it??????????????????????????
Because he was setting a standard. Because he was talking about humans (i.e. white male property owners) not slaves, peons, or those in other forms of servitude blessed by God.

Answer 4

Well, he said it was "self-evident."