The phrase "all men are created equal" is part of a sentence in the United States Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson in 1776 at the start of the American Revolution, that reads, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator..." The whole sentence, including the period at the end of it, is now used as one of the main ideas in a country founded on freedom and justice for all its people. Men are born equal because everyone has the same human nature - children, adults, even the elderly - created by God who has no gender. This natural equality is then often put into practice through government laws and social structures which guarantee certain rights to all citizens. These include the right to life, the right to liberty and the right to property. In America, this idea is called "universal manhood suffrage" and it means that every adult citizen should be allowed to vote in any election whether they are rich or poor, black or white, young or old. This way no matter how many people are alive or not, no matter where you live or not, no matter how good or bad your past has been, everyone has an equal chance to decide what kind of country they want to live in. The word "self-evident" here means obvious or evident to anyone who thinks about it.