Imagine that a country was first created in suspended animation, in which each of the inhabitants from their initial inception, had exactly the same material wealth in the form of the same type of house, the same amount of land, and the same amount of goods within those homes. In other words, all those people were exactly equal in what they own, of which, no one person had more, and no one person had less. Thereupon, the suspended animation ended, and time began, of which over a period of seasons it was noticed that some of those inhabitants desired to do little or nothing of labor, while some preferred to spend their time with drink or other vices, then there were others that applied themselves to educating and advancing their mind, as well as there being those that were especially generous and caring of their fellow mankind, and finally there were the clever sort, the sort that knew how to bargain or trade or deal in a manner, that wholly favored them, and never the other. The upshot of all this activity or lack thereof, was that over a period of time, material possessions of the people were no longer equal, of which some were basically destitute, some had about what they started with, while others had progressed a fair amount, and then there were a very, very few that had grown their assets, hundredfold or even more.
In regards to the civil government of that country, those that had gained the most in material assets, were able to inexorably over a period of time, to assert their authority by the power of that wealth and by their astuteness, to thereby not only buy influence but to also subsequently create dissent and division within the community, thereby increasing their influence all the more. Further, as time went on and the present generation was replaced by the next generation and then the next, those that had great material wealth, were able to successfully pass their wealth on to their progeny, so that, these progeny need not expend any labor whatsoever to live their lives of ease and luxury, but only had to impress the power of what they had, so as to maintain their station in life, for perpetuity; and so that country that had started with equality for all, became instead a country in which, in substance and in so many ways, the many served the few.
While America has never been in practice a land of material equality for all, it so does recognize that each of its denizens is equally created and thereby equally entitled to opportunity, and further that the law as applied in order to be just, must be fair and equally applied to all those that are its citizens. Further to the point, George Washington recognized that in order for this country to strengthen itself, it needed to provide fair access for each of its people to be land owners along with each of its people having a fair means to good subsistence to such, in recognition that America"… will not be less advantageous to the happiness of the lowest class of people, because of the equal distribution of property.” So too, Thomas Jefferson, recognized that the continual inheritance of property from one generation to the next, was fundamentally unfair to those living in the present generation, for "The earth and the fullness of it belongs to every generation, and the preceding one can have no right to bind it up from posterity."
In summary, those that have vast material assets in the present, are able to use such for their purposes in the here and now; but at a minimum, upon their departure from this world, their great estate must be heavily taxed by the government on behalf of the people, to preclude those that would inherit vast amounts of material assets, from being, essentially, the unelected shadow government of this country, that would thereby supersede without a democratic vote, this country of, by, and for the people.