John Locke and The Declaration

The Enlightenment philosophers of the 18th CE articulated basic principles of the modern outlook including the belief that individuals possess natural rights that governments shouldn't violate from which a desire arose to reform society according to such principles.  One such philosopher, John Locke's, focused on these natural rights in his "Second Treatise on Government."  In this document, Locke said that in establishing a government, human beings had never agreed to surrender their natural rights to any sort of state authority.  Therefore, the power that exercised by government leaders cannot be absolute or arbitrary.

The preamble of Thomas Jefferson's, Declaration of Independence, clearly borrowed John Locke's philosophy of natural rights.  Locke viewed life, liberty and property as the individual's essential natural rights.  Instead of property, Jefferson substituted pursuit of happiness.  

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness..."

another aspect that Jefferson adopted of Locke's philosophy was the right of rebellion: "That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it..."  Locke also expresses in his second treatise that if the government fails to fulfill the end for which it was established (the preservation of the individual's right to life, liberty and property) the people have a right to dissolve the government.