I'm not an historian, but I think “E pluribus unum” and “liberté, egalité, franternité” should be analyzed in the context of their own time. “liberté, egalité,

I'm not an historian, but I think “E pluribus unum” and “liberté, egalité, franternité” should be analyzed in the context of their own time. “liberté, egalité, franternité” was a war cry promoting brotherly union against monarchy. "freedom" and "equality before the law" are not competing goals, but were revolutionary ideas on their time. If you said to a member of a royal family back then: "I believe all men are created equal", you could be imprisoned and executed, depending on his majesty's will. That's because your ideas jeopardized the foundations of monarchy.