How could the Declaration say "all men are created equal" when its author held hundreds in slavery?

It could not, at least not consistently, and people noticed at the time. The Declaration's second sentence says that "all men are created equal" and are endowed with the unalienable Rights of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Yet its main author, Thomas Jefferson, owned more than 620 slaves during his adult life, and slavery existed in the new country.

The contradiction attracted comment when the Declaration was first published. In 1776 the English abolitionist Thomas Day mocked an American patriot who signed resolutions of independency with one hand and brandished a whip over his slaves with the other.

There is a twist. Jefferson's first draft included a paragraph condemning the slave trade and blaming King George III for forcing it onto the colonies. Congress deleted it, to moderate the document and appease South Carolina and Georgia, which had significant involvement in the slave trade. Jefferson later wrote that Northern states agreed to its removal too, since their people had been considerable carriers of enslaved people to others.

Jefferson's own record is mixed. He spoke out against the international slave trade, and he favoured gradual emancipation. But he freed only two people during his life, and five more were freed after his death. Both his words and his actions are on record, and later Americans used the same sentence in opposite ways: some called it a self-evident lie, others turned it into an argument for abolition.