"(190). Banneker, felt that since all men were created under one "universal father", that they would all be given the same rights, regardless of race. In agreement with Banneker is David Walker, a free African American from North Carolina. In his piece, "Walker's Appeal", after stating the first section of the Declaration, he says, "Compare your own language above, extracted from your Declaration of Independence, with your cruelties and murders inflicted by your cruel and unmerciful fathers and yourselves on our fathers and on us"(199). Walker feels that the actions of the White Americans are contradictory to the ideas behind the Declaration, therefore implying that the declaration is against slavery. .
On the other hand, those who believed that slavery should not be abolished felt that the Declaration of Independence supported slavery. The pro-slavery parties interpreted the Declaration very differently than the Anti-slavery parties. Many felt that the Declaration did not apply to African Americans. David Christy writes, in "Cotton is King", that "Mr Jefferson could not have thought, for a moment, of conferring upon the negro the rights of American citizenship"(246). Christy felt that African Americans were not worthy of American Citizenship and could not be part of the same social grouping. It was unknown to him how anyone would possibly think that the Declaration applied to African Americans, who were seen only as slaves, and White Americans. Obviously Thomas Jefferson did not mean to include African Americans. Another aspect of the Declaration, the section stating that "all men are created equal", was also interpreted very differently by pro-slavery parties. George Fitzhugh, a Virginia lawyer, believed, "The author of the Declaration may have, and probably did mean, that all men were created with an equal title to property"(242). Fitzhugh saw equality among men as impossible.
