Compare And Contrast Declaration Of Independence And Rousseau
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In the middle of the eighteenth century there was a revolution of independent thinking. During this period called the Enlightenment, great philosophers and new scientists started sharing their ideas more frequently. They started to think of their own theories and came up with new political thoughts that were revolutionary in their time. Prodigious political philosophers like Rousseau, Hobbes, Locke and Montesquieu thought of unique ways to improve the government and discussed it with their peers. The political ideas and philosophies debated about during the Enlightenment are fulfilled through the United States Constitution and The Declaration of Independence. Rousseau is the first of the political philosophers that one would discuss.…show more content… “they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (The Declaration of Independence).Locke considered life, liberty and property to be the most important rights that a person could have, but Thomas Jefferson changed his idea a little to better fit the country’s values. Locke’s equally as important political philosophy was his idea about the government getting all of its power from the people. “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” (The Declaration of Independence). Locke believed that the citizens of a country gave their consent to the government to be ruled. “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it” (The Declaration of Independence). Not only did Locke believe that the people gave their consent to be ruled, but he believed that if the government abused it’s power or was cruel to the citizens, then the people could alter the way that it worked so that it could better fit the society it was