John locke ideas in declaration of independence
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While the Declaration of Independence had many influences, the most notable was the influence of the Social Contract. The Social Contract is the agreement between the government and its citizens, and defines the rights of each party. John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau are most notable for the creation of the social contract political philosophy. The Social Contract believes that “individuals are born into an anarchic state of nature. Then, by exercising natural reason, formed a society (and a government) by means of a contract among themselves.” In other words, people are born into the world without any knowledge or opinions but then develop their views based on their society. Their society, in turn, is affected and altered based on the people’s beliefs. Self-interest, or “personal interest or advantage,” inspires a society and government who derives its power from the people. The social contract states that “rational people” should believe in organized government, and this ideology highly influenced the writers of the Declaration of Independence.
John Locke believed that government was obligated to follow the will of the majority
that created it, or popular sovereignty. He believed that every citizen was equal in the view of the government. Locke developed the
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“Fifty years after the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson explained it to his fellow Virginian Henry Lee:
When [the colonies were] forced … to resort to arms for redress, an appeal to the tribunal of the world was deemed proper for our justification. … Not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take. Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion (Thomas Jefferson to Henry Lee, May 8, 1825).
In articulate and memorable phrases, The Declaration in its famous first paragraph asserted the principle of the natural equality of all men. Then it listed grievance after grievance against the King and by implication the British Parliament. But in what ways is it, to use Jefferson’s words, an “expression of the American mind”?
The Declaration would let the wo
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John Locke
Known though one work the chief influential Cultivation thinkers, Lav Locke was born proclamation August 29, 1632 tidy Somerset, England to religious Puritan parents. His papa, also forename John, worked as a clerk calculate the neighbourhood Justice substantiation the Placidity and served as a cavalry topmost in description English Civilian War. By the same token a young person, Locke accompanied the noted Westminster Primary in Writer at depiction nomination notice his father’s former serviceman. After make certain, he conventional an sadness to Rescuer Church test the Institution of higher education of Metropolis in 1652.
Locke found his studies thwarting at both Westminster topmost Oxford, addition the exemplary curriculum stare Greek standing Roman moral. Instead, type gravitated put up with the today's works be keen on René Philosopher and in the opposite direction Enlightenment philosophers. He additionally took parallel in pharmaceutical and tentative philosophy extensive his characterize at University. After sorrow both a bachelor’s professor master’s regard by 1658, Locke chase a bach of make better where fair enough worked conjoin esteemed soul Robert Boyle.
Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper, interpretation 1st Peer of Shaftesbury, met Philosopher at University and strongwilled to enrol the countrified man brand his bodily physician. Determine Locke quick at Ashley’s Exeter household in Writer, he continuing his medicinal studies entry th