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Two Treatises Of The Government

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The concept of natural rights has been the mainstay of American philosophy and is a founding principle in its identity. The Enlightenment period of human history was a European intellectual movement that emphasized the use of reason over superstition which caused advancement in philosophy, politics, the arts, and science. During this time period Enlightenment ideas eventually made their way to the west, bringing new democratic and political values to colonists. Natural rights, as conceived by European enlightenment thinkers, have fundamentally influenced the shaping of the United States by providing the foundation for the Declaration of Independence, the development of the constitution, and impacting the course of civil rights for the people …show more content…

Among these figures, were philosophers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Locke who argued that there were inherent rights that could not be taken or infringed upon by governmental authority. These rights were the right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. John Locke, in particular, influenced the American people through his written works “Two Treatises of the Government”. Locke brings forward key ideas that contributed to the creation of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Locke asserted that governments are created through the consent of the governed whose purpose is to protect the natural rights of its citizens (Locke 1689). If the government fails to fulfill its role in protecting the rights of its citizens, then the people have a right to revolt (Locke 1689). The concepts of natural rights and the social contract would go on to change the hearts and minds of American colonists and founding …show more content…

An early example of this is the abolitionist movement of the 19th century, which sought to abolish slavery in the United States. This movement drew heavily upon Locke’s idea of natural rights to assert that the government had violated slaves' natural rights of liberty and life. Another civil rights movement that was fueled by natural rights was the 20th century civil rights movement spearheaded by Martin Luther King Jr. The civil rights movement leveraged natural rights to argue against segregation laws and institutional discrimination. The teachings of this movement used natural rights as a moral basis for civil disobedience and peaceful protest to fight for discriminated American

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