The influences of history, culture, economics, and philosophy on the drafters of the Declaration of Independence are clear throughout the work and are still relevant today in American Political Society. The Declaration of Independence was heavily influenced by a variety of documents, philosophies, history, culture, economics.
There is the history of how the Declaration of Independence came about before it was pushed for. The Declaration declared that the thirteen American colonies would regard themselves as independent sovereign states no longer under British rule. The thirteen American colonies had been at war with the Kingdom of Great Britain. At the time, England was a monarchy overseen by the Catholic church. The Magna Carta served …show more content…
A noteworthy philosopher was Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In the Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s theory argued that not one person was entitled to have natural authority over others. Thomas Jefferson used Rousseau’s social contract theory to justify the need for independence. It is written in the Declaration, “Governments are instituted… deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” (Declaration of Independence). The idea of consent stems from Rousseau’s On the Social Contract. He stated that this contract was a commitment between people in a society and the government they create. He believed a “social compact” was needed to form a government in which people gave consent to the government. John Locke’s ideas were heavily seen in the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence states that “All men are created equal”. This idea was based on Locke’s belief that the state of nature is “a state also of equality”. The belief that people have natural rights, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” was used by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. This reveals the influence by philosopher John Locke who believed in the “right of self-preservation” and the rights to things that “affords for their …show more content…
Some of this culture was humanism, the idea that God gave us the inherent creativity and the intelligence to correct our own mistakes; We can fix most of our ills by intelligence; the birth of scientific inquiry. There was also Manifest Destiny and this was the idea that nothing is stopping us, it is in our destiny. Republicanism meaning sovereignty rested with the people. Protestant Work Ethic meant that if you want to get ahead, you need to take extra steps individual responsibility. We guide our own affairs. This was important in the Declaration because if the people wanted to get ahead, they needed to have rights. They got those rights by taking initiative. Today, it is in our culture, to want to be treated fairly. This demonstrates how the Declaration is relevant today because we all want to have equal