After all, the Declaration of Independence was breathtaking it said in effect, we are going to overthrow a nation based on one idea and establish a nation based on a new idea. Imagine that, a nation based on an idea!
The idea? All men are created equal and the government must operate only with the consent of the people. A distinct departure from the government operating under George III even so far as it was tempered by Parliament and a far greater departure from the feudal and semifeudal governments operating in Europe in 1517.
Martin Luther came up with an idea of doing away with the exclusive intercession of the church between God and man. As the church lost the exclusive office to explain God to the penitent so it ultimately lost the power to legitimate kings and emperors. The old ideas were undermined.
Ideas have power. A Hundred million people have died because of ideas written down by Karl Marx. Billions more have been protected by the ideas written down by Martin Luther and by Thomas Jefferson, to name a few. The power of Luther's ideas was extraordinary, extraordinary for good but also extraordinary for barbarity when misapplied. Nevertheless, the idea which found first widespread attention by the publication of those 95 theses led, perhaps not inexorably but ultimately, to sublime expression of the ideas of Thomas Jefferson.
