How Did Locke Contribute To The American Revolution

Locke’s natural rights were critical for the formation of United States government as we know it today, especially through the writing of his Second Treatise on Government. This second treatise is what is most often quoted about Locke. This is his writing that contains an unrestricted defense of liberty and his concept of natural rights, life, health, liberty, and possessions. (Locke) He believed that governments should only be formed to protect those rights. He even believed that if everyone respected other’s natural rights and punished those who didn’t, anarchy was an excellent form of society. He wrote that it is citizens right and duty to rebel and overthrow a government that infringes on people’s natural rights. they then are permitted

His work was often cited by revolutionary Americans. “Locke helped inspire Thomas Paine’s radical ideas about revolution. Locke fired up George Mason. From Locke, James Madison drew his most fundamental principles of liberty and government. Locke’s writings were part of Benjamin Franklin’s self-education, and John Adams believed that both girls and boys should learn about Locke”. (Declaration of Independence). Locke believed that people had a right to an independent government to serve them which he based on his natural rights. He said “whenever the Legislators endeavor to take away, and destroy the Property of the People, or to reduce them to Slavery under Arbitrary Power, they put themselves into a state of War with the People, who are thereupon absolved from any farther Obedience”. (Declaration of Independence) The americans were saying that the oppression by the British gave them permission to rebel. The declaration of independance also contains these ideas. In it it is written “A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people”. (Declaration of Independence) The roots of the American Revolution's validity is in John Locke’s

Locke believed that it is people’s inherent right to govern themselves. He “championed the social contract and govern­ment by consent”. (Steven) He even went so far to say that people did not need to be governed. All that government is is a framework by which people protect their natural rights, but it only needs to exist in practice. In his version of the “state of nature if anyone may punish someone for something bad that he has done, then everyone may do so That is how in a state of nature one man comes to have a legitimate power over another”. (Locke) The United States government is a pioneering government that is based on the concept of self government. In its basis, the constitution, it is written “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union” (Washington) showing that this was to be a government by the people and for the