Locke and Jefferson
Two Great Minds
John Locke
John Locke was a philosopher of the Enlightenment, also known as the "Father of Classical Liberalism" and he was involved with the social contract theory.
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the writer of the Declaration of Independence, and he was also the 3rd president as well as a founding father. He mostly spoke about democracy, and held the principles of republicanism.
How John Locke wrote the constitution.
Locke didn't really write the constitution with Jefferson, no. Jefferson took inspirations from The Two Treatises of Government. Most of the inspiration came from the Second Treatise, which had two ideas;
- State of Nature-You don't have to do what people say, you are your own judge of what's right, and
- Representative Government-Citizens like you and I are in the Government.
Another thing that was mentioned was The Natural Rights of Man. Jefferson did cite that, but he did change things around. Firstly, Locke had the idea of Life, Liberty, and Property. Jefferson changed it to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Summary
Out of all the ideas inspired by Locke, the ones I listed were pretty important. Without State of Nature, America would still be a sort of Monarchy, and the Representative Government would be pointless, and we would be running off the wants and impulses of the king, whether he be good or bad, and not only that, he would have all the power to do whatever he wanted, not caring about what his advisers may say.