Issue Monday: What Did Jefferson Mean When He Wrote That “All Men Are Created Equal”?
Join Centennial Institute for our February Issue Monday lecture with Dr. Jeremy Bailey, Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy at the Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Many have debated why Thomas Jefferson included the phrase “all men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence. After all, not all men were treated equally at the time of the American Founding, and Jefferson himself owned slaves. But that’s only scratching the surface of this complex founder. Bailey, one of the leading scholars of American political thought and development, will examine Jefferson’s ideas and principles to provide a more complete picture of his character and better understand what he meant when he penned those impactful words that continue to echo through our history.
Issue Monday: What Did Jefferson Mean When He Wrote That “All Men Are Created Equal”?
Monday, February 8, 2027
7:00 pm – 8:30 pm MT
Fran & Larry Donnithorne Great Hall
Colorado Christian University
8787 W. Alameda Ave.
Lakewood, CO 80226
MEDIA CREDENTIALING: While members of the media are welcome to attend our events, they are not allowed inside university buildings or facilities for the purpose of reporting unless they have received prior approval in writing from the Communications and Creative Services Department. For more information on how to apply for a media credential, please email centennial@ccu.edu.
About Jeremy Bailey
Jeremy D. Bailey is Professor of Humanities at the Hamilton School at the University of Florida and the Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy at the Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado. He is a scholar of American political thought and constitutional development, especially the political thought of the American founding. Bailey’s most recent book is The Other Declarations: Thomas Jefferson and the Language of American Democracy (University Press of Kansas, 2026). He is also the author of Thomas Jefferson and Executive Power (Cambridge University Press, 2007), James Madison and Constitutional Imperfection (Cambridge University Press, 2015), and the Idea of Presidential Representation: An Intellectual and Political History (University Press of Kansas, 2019). Before Florida, Bailey held the Sanders Chair in Law and Liberty at the University of Oklahoma and directed the Institute for the American Constitutional Heritage. He has presented his research at over fifty colleges and universities, and he regularly works with high school history and government teachers.
