"All men are created equal"

that in the state of nature all men are born equally free, therefore all governments are man made constructs created by through the consent of the governed. Basically an argument against heritable aristocracy and the devine right of kings.Read some Locke or at least the rest of the paragraph.

the loyalists freed the slaves while the patriots fought on the side of slavery.

The institution had long traditions stretching back over 6 generations.
Defending traditions isn't inherently wrong.

they were classical liberals that wanted the right changes

they were not authoritarian leftists who wanted changes that have been tried before in other countries and failed

Originally it meant that all people are equal in dignity to one another. It's a statement of the universality of rights.
Now it means that all people are equal biologically and any differences are cultural. To the mainstream, at least

The original draft was super anti-slavery and wrote by Jefferson himself. We can take it then at face value: all men are created equal and endowed with the same rights.

But, well, he owned slaves. Chances are he wanted what all men with ideas but also property wanted, which was to practice these ideals but without seriously bankrupting oneself financially. Slavery paid the bills, unfortunately.

I'm not making a moral statement, I'm just pointing out that calling those defending slavery liberals is pretty silly. You can even make the argument that the founding fathers were conservative as a majority of the colonist anger came from the Parliament's increasing crown control over the colonies which had previously given almost complete freedom.

it was more anti-slave trade than anti-slavery. Weird to modern ears but a lot of slave owners saw the Atlantic slave trade as barbaric while simultaneously seeing their personal plantation slavery as a paternalistic good.

The original draft was str8 anti-slavery, not trade.
Jefferson's choice was slavery or debtors prison. Slavery is terrible, but so is being broke.

considering the fiscal requirements of running a nation that had accrued debt during the revolutionary war, and the fact that nearly the entire agrarian economy was based on slavery and land, trying to uproot the economic system that fed both international trade and the northern textile industry -- the only means the U.S. had of possibly paying back those debts and growing the economy to the point that the nation became stable (as it did in the 1850s) was to maintain the old institution of slavery as an economic necessity. It was either that or risk another revolution and possibly fall back into British hands. I'm no slavery apologist, but the country had more pressing matters at hand that would have to come first to guarantee the nation's survival, demolishing slavery would have crippled the U.S. even more than it already was at it's conception. It's like Weimar Germany demolishing any factories they had left after signing the Treaty of Versailles, it would have been economic suicide.

Anarchy with slavery and a non-existent infrastructure with no respite for anyone in sight due to a civil war started early in the country's existence with little to no industry remove the slavery incentive, or a poor but gradually growing nation with the economic guarantee of ending slavery as industry ends the need for such an institution (as it tends to do since mechanized farming is really cheap and more efficient compared to slave labor).

choose one.

(pic not related)

>calling those defending slavery liberals is pretty silly.

They were silly, perhaps, but calling them that is just accurate for the context. Some (not all) were simply hypocritical when it came to slavery. For others (the northerners, basically) it was just a concession necessary for unity.