REVOLUTION & ENLIGHTENMENT
Impact of the Enlightenment: John Locke on Thomas Jefferson
Name: ____________________________
INTRODUCTION The ‘Founding Fathers’ of the United States were generally well educated men who had read
Enlightenment philosophers such as John Locke and Thomas Hobbes, as well as French philosophers, such as
Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau, who were concerned with freedom, equality, and justice.
JOHN LOCKE AND NATURAL LAW John Locke, 1632-1704, was an English Enlightenment philosopher. He believed
that people once lived in a state of nature, which means without laws or government. Locke wrote about the idea
of the “social contract.” The Social Contract was when people form governments and give up their natural rights
from their state of nature in order to receive the key rights of life, liberty and property. All of this depends on the
concept of the “consent of the governed,” that the people are an active part of the contract and participate on their
own accord.
THOMAS JEFFERSON Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826, was a Virginia lawyer who was a delegate to the Continental
Congress, the writer of the Declaration of Independence, a governor of Virginia, ambassador to France and
Secretary of State under President George Washington. He was elected the third President of the United States,
serving two terms in this highest office in the land.
LOCKE AND JEFFERSON Jefferson was a great admirer of Locke’s writings, and once wrote that Locke was “one of
the three greatest men that ever lived.” Historians have wondered how much Locke’s writings influenced
Jefferson’s writing of the Declaration of Independence. Referring to the origin of the Declaration, Jefferson wrote:
“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…”
Directions: John Locke, in particular, directly influenced the thinking of the founders, as reflected in the Declaration
of Independence. Compare the words of Thomas Jefferson (in 1776) with those of John Locke (in 1690).
On your own sheet of paper, create a Venn Diagram. In the left circle, the theme should be “John Locke: Second
Treatise of Civil Government.”
In the right circle, the theme should be “Thomas Jefferson: Declaration of Independence.”
The “Common Themes” section in the middle should have plenty of space to share and discuss common themes
between the two men’s work and writing.
In complete sentences, answer the following questions, as well:
1.) What are the common themes in these two passages? (think big ideas)
2.) What are the critical differences? (think big ideas)
3.) In what ways does Jefferson build on the ideas presented by Locke? (think similarities, common themes)
JOHN LOCKE
SECOND TREATISE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT
“When any one, or more, shall take upon them to
make laws whom the people have not appointed so to
do, they make laws without authority, which the people
are not therefore bound to obey; by which means they
come again to be out of subjection, and may constitute
to themselves a new legislature.”
1.)
THOMAS JEFFERSON
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
“When in the course of human events, it becomes
necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands
that have connected them with another, and to assume,
among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal
station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God
entitle them…”
1.)
“Whosoever uses force without right… puts himself
2.) “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations,
into a state of war with those against whom he so uses
pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to
it, and in that state all former ties are canceled, all other
reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right,
rights cease, and every one has a right to defend
it is their duty, to throw off such government…”
himself, and to resist the aggressor…”
2.)
“A state also of equality, wherein all the power and
jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than
another…”
3.)
“[Men] have a mind to unite for the mutual
preservation of their lives, liberties, and… property.”
4.)
“To great and chief end, therefore, of men uniting
into commonwealths, and putting themselves under
government, is the preservation of their property…”
5.)
“…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… when
the Government is dissolved, the People are at liberty
to provide for themselves, by erecting a new Legislative,
differing from the other, by the change of Persons, or
Form, or both as they shall find it most for their safety
and good.”
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men
are created equal;”
3.)
“…that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable rights, that among these are life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
4.)
“…that to secure these rights, governments are
instituted among men, deriving their just powers from
the consent of the governed.”
5.)
6.)
“…that whenever any Form of Government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to
alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing
its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most
likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
6.)