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Oh, and you left out the word "Independence."

LOL. A feeble reply when after you've written "John Locke does not declare a natural right to revolution and independence" I highlight your historical illiteracy yet again by showing where he writes of the "Right of Revolution."

"Independence" follows as a matter of course when that right of revolution (which Locke clearly espouses) results in a change in government (which he also acknowledges) and the land under the former government is geographically separate from the seat of government.

When Locke was writing the era of colonialism was still developing. You can protest all day that you don't think he mattered in the way you see Vattel because you don't see the word "independence" beside "revolution" in Locke. But the American colonists 70 years later saw the applicability of his thoughts to their situation. The link on the Convention debates you provided in your attempt to elevate Vattel proves my point about Locke:

"In order to prove that individuals in a State of nature are equally free & independent he read passages from Locke, Vattel, Lord Summers- Priestly. To prove that the case is the same with States till they surrender their equal sovereignty, he read other passages in Locke & Vattel, and also Rutherford[.]"

Want more?

He expressed the radical view that government is morally obliged to serve people, namely by protecting life, liberty, and property. He explained the principle of checks and balances to limit government power. He favored representative government and a rule of law. He denounced tyranny. He insisted that when government violates individual rights, people may legitimately rebel.

These views were most fully developed in Locke’s famous Second Treatise Concerning Civil Government, and they were so radical that he never dared sign his name to it. He acknowledged authorship only in his will. Locke’s writings did much to inspire the libertarian ideals of the American Revolution. This, in turn, set an example which inspired people throughout Europe, Latin America, and Asia.

Thomas Jefferson ranked Locke, along with Locke’s compatriot Algernon Sidney, as the most important thinkers on liberty. Locke helped inspire Thomas Paine’s radical ideas about revolution. Locke fired up George Mason. From Locke, James Madison drew his most fundamental principles of liberty and government. Locke’s writings were part of Benjamin Franklin’s self-education, and John Adams believed that both girls and boys should learn about Locke. The French philosopher Voltaire called Locke “the man of the greatest wisdom. What he has not seen clearly, I despair of ever seeing.”

Locke. Freedom. Independence. But to listen to the historically illiterate DiogenesLamp, one would think the notion of independence couldn't be derived from Locke (or others), only Vattel. Yet persons like James Otis credit Locke (and in both Otis and the passage above Locke is listed first before Vattel). Go figure.

The US didn't have an actual "Revolution", they had a "War of Independence."

Oh, I see.

"The American Revolution was not a common event. Its effects and consequences have already been awful over a great part of the globe. And when and where are they to cease?

But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations." John Adams, Letter to H. Niles, 1818
"THESE are times that tried men's souls,and they are over- and the greatest and completest revolution the world ever knew, gloriously and happily accomplished." Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, April 19, 1783.
"For, according to the system of Policy the States shall adopt at this moment, they will stand or fall, and by their confirmation or lapse, it is yet to be decided, whether the Revolution must ultimately be considered as a blessing or a curse: a blessing or a curse, not to the present age alone, for with our fate will the destiny of unborn Millions be involved." George Washington, Circular to the States (1783).

It seems Washington, Adams, and Paine are "lazy men" who didn't get the memo that we didn't strictly speaking have a revolution. Thank goodness we have a 21st Century goofball engineer to set the record straight.

Did Locke happen to mention the confederation of states in a perpetual union anywhere?

I don't know. But the question is irrelevant to the point of whether Locke's views on revolution inspired the American Colonists. They did. The point can't credibly be disputed.

Switzerland as an existing federation was naturally closer as a model than anything else in Europe at the time. This was probably true whether anyone read Vattel or not. Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui was another contemporary Swiss author who also wrote a treatise on natural law and political philosophy -- The Principles of Natural and Politic Law (1748). This on Burlamaqui:

Burlamaqui's treatise The Principles of Natural and Politic Law was translated into six languages (besides the original French) in 60 editions. His vision of constitutionalism had a major influence on the American Founding Fathers: "Early American thought also drew on ideas circulating on the Continent. The author who played the greatest part in transmitting those ideas over the Atlantic was the Swiss writer Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui, now almost forgotten, but at one time a best-selling author." . . . He was frequently quoted or He was the first philosopher to articulate the quest for happiness as a natural human right, a principle that Thomas Jefferson later restated in the Declaration of Independence.[5] . . .Burlamaqui's description of European countries as forming "a kind of republic the members of which, independent but bound by common interest, come together to maintain order and liberty" is quoted by Michel Foucault in his 1978 lectures at the Collège de France in the context of a discussion of diplomacy and the law of nations.[6]."

Yes, Vattel was influential. Though but for an English translation of his work coming 9 years AFTER the U.S. Constitution was drafted that used the term "natural born citizen," this absurd elevation of Vattel to try to make him out to be the predominant inspiration for American independence and Constitutional republic would not be happening.