In the last half-century the constitutional command requiring equal protection of the laws for all people has been critical in the great social movements that have secured equal legal rights for people of color, women, and other groups, in the United States. In concept it is one of the noblest statements in the American Constitution, and in practice one of the more powerful. Without its authority it is unlikely that the United States would have achieved as much social progress as it has in the past 50 years, and many Americans might still be subjected to an institutionalized prejudice that made them second-class citizens, unable to vote or enjoy all rights. Yet although the Fourteenth Amendment became part of the Constitution in 1868, almost 90 years passed before this broad interpretation of the meaning of "equal protection" flowered.
* * * * *
When Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal," he did not mean social or economic egalitarianism. Rather he and others of the Founding generation believed that society by its nature could never be socially or economically homogeneous because men differ in their abilities and virtues. They did not want to level society, but rather give to each individual the opportunity to make the most of his abilities. In order for this opportunity to exist, all men (and at the time they were only concerned with men) had to stand before the law on an equal footing. There could not be one law for the rich and another for the poor, although the Founders ignored the fact that there was clearly one law for white people and another for slaves. A generation later, when Andrew Jackson's Democrats talked about equality, they meant the same thing — equality of opportunity based on equal treatment by the law.
Interestingly, no mention of equal opportunity can be found in either the original body of the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, nor was it deemed necessary until after the Civil War. When it became apparent that the defeated Confederate states had no intention of treating the newly freed slaves fairly, Congress responded by drafting and passing the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbade all states from denying any citizens not only due process of law but equal protection of those laws.