John Locke's View Of The Colonists After The American Revolution

Before the revolution even began, many ideas sprouted in the colonies about a revolution happening. After the Seven Years’ War, England was in major debt. To help pay off this debt they started to place taxes on British goods, this directly affected the colonists. The colonists were not happy about this so they started to rebel, and while England did make changes to this law the colonists still did not support this. The colonists were getting angrier with the British, and when the first shot rang during the Boston massacre, everything started to go downhill. The colonists started to become even more separated from the British, they refused to work with the colonies and the calls for independence from the colonists were getting stronger starting
“. . . conditions all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to do as they wish and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave or depending upon the will of any other man.” While Locke believed in these natural rights he also believed that in order for us to have these natural rights protected we had to give some of them up. “All men are naturally in that state, and remain so till, by their own consents, they make themselves members of some political society.” Locke communicates that when we give up some of our natural rights to create a ‘political society’ or government they are supposed to ensure that our rights are always being protected. When Thomas Jefferson was writing the Declaration of Independence, he made sure that liberty was the central theme. But while liberty was one of the main themes, it was not the whole purpose of this
When Jefferson was writing the Declaration he said that it was ‘supposed to be an expression of the American mind’ meaning that he wasn’t going to make all of these rules and expectations that the colonists had never seen or heard of; he wanted to make everything the Americans had already experienced. He wanted to just put into writing the morals that they already had and the liberties and freedoms they already experienced. “This was the object of the Declaration of Independence. Not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take”. Here Jefferson is expressing that even though these ideas are not original, they are important for everyone to see. Also, he is writing this document to make sure that everyone knows why they are separating from England. While this document was important to America, it also helped influence other countries to do the same or something