On 'Country of Lords'

Few documents have been scrutinized more than our Declaration of Independence, with particular attention lavished on the truth that all men are created equal. The Declaration’s signers, a small cadre of white male property owners, were referring to themselves, but once the democracy genie had escaped the bottle, equality morphed into guises the Founders couldn’t have imagined, triggering a definitive Constitution a decade later as state legislatures swore in an increasingly diverse range of representatives than, say, John Adams had intended. In the aftermath of ratification, Federalists and anti-Federalists, grandparents of today’s two major parties, kicked off a conflict that still roils our nation.