John Locke's Influence Analytical Essay by Top Papers

The paper argues that John Locke was a major influence on the Declaration of Independence and the revolutionary ideology through the writings of Thomas Jefferson and the Committee of Five. The paper analyzes the textual foundation of Locke's "The Second Treatise of Civil Government" and shows how there is a great resemblance of language and ideology in the two texts. The paper contends that this is strong historical proof that Locke was not merely a secondary influence on the document-along with other European thinkers-but that he was a main philosophical component to the birth of the American republican ideology of "natural rights" for all of those being governed.