I know this is going to come as a shock, but your high minded American ideals are actually largely European (particularly British and French ideals).
You may want to look up the following:
Magna Carta - England - 1215
- Begins to establish that all men - including kings are equal under the law
Habeas Corpus Act - England - 1679
- Stengthens existing laws against unlawful detention that had been on English statute books for nearly 300 years
English Bill of Rights - England - 1689 (98 years before the US Constitution was signed)
- The American consitution is largely based on this document.
US Declaration of Independence - United States - 1776
- Incredibly beautiful document written largely by Thomas Jefferson.
- "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..."
- No one notices the absurdity of using this sentence to declare independence for a country that has institutionalized slavery
US Constitution Ratified - United States - 1787?
- Another beautifully written document
- Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 institutionalizes the idea that all men are
not created equal when it states that slaves only count as three fifths of a man when apportioning seats in the House of Representatives
The US has been telling everyone that it came up with the ideas of western democracy ever since. It didn't - it just had better marketing than the British