During the Age of the Enlightenment, the phrase “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” was written into the United States Declaration of Independence and served as a goal to which Americans could reach for and expect when living in the country. The phrase contains three “unalienable rights” which all human beings have access too, given to them by their “Creator.” However, the year the Declaration of Independence was written, 1776, all three of these “unalienable rights” would only have pertained to white males. Even more specifically, white Anglo-Saxon Puritan males. To be able to aspire to a life of liberty and the pursuit of happiness, you must not be African-American, an indentured servant or a woman. Twelve out of the first eighteen president’s owned slaves and even Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence is quoted to believe in abolishing slavery, although he owned slaves himself. “It took 87 more years – and the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the 13th Amendment to end slavery” (monticello). During the Age of Enlightenment, Philadelphia …show more content…
First they moved to London, where Benezet was able to go to school, but at 17 he was made to move to Philadelphia. Moving to the new colony is what spawned his interest in becoming a Quaker. He was a teacher at the Friends' English School of Philadelphia, but preferred to teach slave children at his house during the evenings. This soon transitioned into him opening up the first public school for girls' in America and later on the Negro School in Philadelphia. He preached to Quakers that “slave-owning was not consistent with Christian doctrine” (brycchancarey). His article Some Historical Account of Guinea, which he wrote in 1772 would be extremely influential in the Abolitionist movement, which unfortunately Benezet would no longer be alive to