James Otis (mentor of Samuel Adams and John Hancock) identified the source of many of the signers’ ideas when he declared: "The authority of Mr. Locke has been preferred to all others."
Signer of the Declaration Richard Henry Lee declared that: "The Declaration was copied from Locke’s Treatise on Government."
"The Declaration of Independence was founded upon one and the same theory of government expounded in the writings of John Locke." - John Quincy Adams
The signer of the Declaration Richard Henry Lee declared that the Declaration was “copied from Locke’s Treatise on Government.”
John Locke(1632-1704) was an English theologian and political philosopher, and Declaration signers such as John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Rush, and many others sang his praises.
Locke authored numerous works that influenced America (including the original constitution of Carolina, 1669), but his writing that most influenced the Founders’ philosophy in the Declaration of Independence was his Treatise of Government.
Locke’s Treatise (actually two separate treatises combined into one book) is less than 400 pages long; but in the first treatise, Locke invoked the Bible in 1,349 references; in his second treatise, he cited it 157 times. In the primary work influencing the Declaration of Independence, Locke referred to the Bible over 1,500 times to show the proper operation of civil government. http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=160
That is right and the Virginia Constitution as well.