In 1772, Samuel Adams of Massachusetts (Founding member of the Sons of Liberty and second cousin of future-President John Adams) drafted a declaration of the rights of the colonists as men, as Christians, and as subjects of the British Crown. This statement of the rights to which the colonists believed they were entitled was written 4 years before the Declaration of Independence. How did the social contract affect the American Revolution?Jean-Jacques Rousseau's ideas of the social contract heavily influenced the American revolutionary generation. It was the idea that government exists with consent of the governed that led the revolutionaries to break free of Britain.
How did the social contract affect the Declaration of Independence?The social contract states that “rational people” should believe in organized government, and this ideology highly influenced the writers of the Declaration of Independence. that created it, or popular sovereignty. He believed that every citizen was equal in the view of the government.
|