•Classical liberal concerns addressed in Enlightenment
•Early American leaders believed in people’s natural rights to life, liberty, and property.
•Social contract—People form a government to protect their rights
•Philosophers John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau important contributors to social contract theory
•Economic and civil liberties important as well
Ideas would be key to transforming loyal English colonists, first into revolutionaries and then into founders of a new nation. In addition to English traditions, ideas were key to transforming loyal English colonists first into revolutionaries and
then into founders of a new nation