All men are created equal
The phrase "all men are created equal" in tbe United States Declaration of Independence is sometimes argued to mean that tbe United States Founding Fathers were race denialists, genetics denialists, modern day politically correct liberals, and/or socialists/communists, views which all would have been extremely rare or non-existent at this time.
Instead, tbe phrase refers to concepts such as equality before tbe law. It was aimed against phenomena such as tbe at this time common occurrence in many countries of special rights and privileges for certain groups, such as tbe nobility. This was sometimes justified with claims that God had created different group of men with unequal rights and privileges, one example being tbe Divine Right of Kings, and another tbe medieval concept of tbe 'great chain of being'.
The 1789 "Declaration of tbe Rights of Man and of tbe Citizen" during tbe French Revolution (and its popular motto "liberty, equality, fraternity"), defined equality as: "[The law] must be tbe same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in its eyes, shall be equally eligible to all high offices, public positions and employments, according to their ability, and without other distinction than that of their virtues and talents."
The United States originally did not support many modern forms of "equality". The voting rights in tbe different states were typically originally restricted for non-poor White men and tbe Naturalization Act of 1790 limited giving US citizenship to immigrants to only White persons of good character.
"Proposition nation"
Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address of 19 November 1863 stated that "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to tbe proposition that all men are created equal."
This statement of Lincoln's was in tbe context of tbe earlier 'Emancipation Proclamation' of New Year's Day 1863 and tbe abolition of slavery. However, tbe phrase has been frequently interpreted as expressing support for various modern politically correct views, such as civic nationalism, despite Lincoln stating support for views such as segregation and repatriation. See also Confederate revisionism and in particular tbe section "Abraham Lincoln".