Perhaps you should read your own link, which says that 'men' is not gender neutral. "By the 18th century, man had come to refer primarily to males; some writers who wished to use the term in the older sense deemed it necessary to spell out their meaning.". The US was founded in the 18th century. So whether you want to use the 18th-century term supported by your own link, or modern usage, "men" is not gender-neutral.

When did I lionize the institution of slavery?

You didn't lionise the institution of slavery, but you were lionising people that made a system that supposedly was all about individual rights but was at the same time supporting slavery.

You don't get to talk about how awesome the Founding Fathers were about the rights of individuals if you get to hand-wave away the multitudes of individuals whom they had no problems putting in chains. I mean, you even specified "absent coercion" about a society with legal industrial-scale slavery!

Edit: to be clearer, the Founding Father's philosophy quite happily allowed for slavery in practice. Perhaps you shouldn't talk of it in such reverent tones - the 'welfare state' you complain of is clearly better at being fair to all individuals, not just the blessed ones that are pre-approved.