Locke, in particular, was the authority to whom the Patriots paid greatest deference. He was the most famous of seventeenth century democratic theorists, and his ideas had their due weight with the colonists. Almost every writer seems to have been influenced by him, many quoted his words, and the argument of others shows the unmistakable imprint of his philosophy. The first great speech of Otis was wholly based upon Locke's ideas; Samuel Adams, on the "Rights of the Colonists as Men and as British Subjects," followed the same model. Many of the phrases of the Declaration of Independence may be found in Locke's Treatise; 1 there is hardly any important writer of this time who does not openly refer to Locke, or tacitly follow the lead he had taken. The argument in regard to the limitations upon Parliament was taken from Locke's reflections on the "supreme legislature" and the necessary restrictions upon its authority. No one stated more strongly than did he the basis for the doctrine that "taxation without representation is tyranny." No better epitome of the Revolutionary theory could be found than in John Locke on civil government. The colonists claimed no origi

1 See Secs. 220, 222, 225, 230.

2 See Sec. 135 ff. The four limitations upon the legislature, named by Locke were: 1. It cannot be absolutely arbitrary. 2. It must rule by standing laws. 3. "Cannot take from any man part of his property without his own consent." 4. Cannot transfer the power of making laws.

nality for the fundamental doctrines they preached ; in fact they declared that these ideas were at least as old as the days of Greece and Rome. John Adams said: "These are what are called Revolution principles. They are the principles of Aristotle and Plato; of Livy and Cicero, and Sydney, Harrington and Locke; the principles of nature and eternal reason; the principles on which the whole government over us now stands."1 The Patriots did not profess to have discovered_a hitherto unknown system of political theory; on the contrary, they appealed to an old and long accepted theory, a theory indeed upon which rested the legitimacy of the English political system of that day.

The French radical influence upon the Revolution was comparatively small. Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws (1748) was known to the colonists, and the doctrines therein contained were frequently quoted. But many of the features admired in Montesquieu were derived from his study of the English constitution and the English political system. This was eminently true of his celebrated doctrine of the tripartite division of governmental powers, which he had found or thought he found in the English constitution. Many of the other projects advocated by him were also derived from his study of English institutions. The greatest of the revolutionary philosophers of France, Rousseau, did not write

1 Works, IV, 15.

his classic work, The Social Contract, until 1762, whereas the revolutionary doctrines of Otis were uttered in 1761. The general philosophy of the colonists shows little likeness to that of Rousseau, and but infrequent reference to his theory is made. Indeed, the fundamental ideas of the French writer were very similar to those of Locke.1 There is little evidence to show that the bent of the revolutionary theory in America was determined by the great apostle of the French Revolution; but on the other hand very much to prove that the theory of Locke and the English school was predominant.

On the whole, the theory of the Revolution was in direct line with English political precedent and philosophy. In their destructive or revolutionary doctrine the "Fathers" of 1776 simply followed their "Fathers" of the preceding century. But in their constructive theory, notably in their substitution for monarchy and nobility of the many democratic features embodied in their state constitutions, they were striking out on new lines of political experiment. Many of these ideas, perhaps all of them, had been already suggested in the seventeenth century; but they had been unable to win a definite place for themselves in the English system

1 Cf. D. G. Ritchie, "Contributions to the History of the Social Contract Theory," in Political Science Quarterly, VI, 664. In this connection see Georg Jellinek, Die Erklärung der Menschenund Bürgerrechte, Leipzig, 1895.

of that day,1 and were left to be realized in practice by the American democracy of the next century.

In conclusion, then, it appears that the fundamental political ideas in vogue among the Patriots were not the product of American soil, and were not original with the men of the Revolutionary day, but were the inheritance of English political experience and philosophy in the preceding century. The form in which they were expressed was striking and dramatic, but the ideas themselves were not new; on the contrary they were, from the viewpoint of political theory, doctrines long familiar. The teaching that all men are by nature equal is found in the Roman law,2 while the idea that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, is a long accepted maxim. Professor Gierke, the distinguished German authority, says that "from the end of the thirteenth century it was an axiom of political theory that the legal basis of all authority lay in the voluntary subjection through contract of the community ruled." The doctrine of the right of resistance was stated with greatest emphasis by the political theorists of the revolutionary type in the sixteenth

8

1 Cf. "The Agreement of the People," 1647, in Gardiner's Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution, p. 270.

2 Digest, L, 17, 32. Quod ad jus naturale attinet, omnes homines æquales sunt; from Ulpian, who died circa 328 A.D.

8 Otto Gierke, Johannes Althusius und die Entwicklung der naturrechtlichen Staatstheorien, Breslau, 1880.

and seventeenth centuries.1 To attribute the orig ination of these ideas to the men of 1776 is, therefore, simply to ignore the historical development of political theory. But in respect to the practical application of these doctrines, what has just been said does not apply; for a set of principles like those involved in the construction of state constitutions had never before received such public recognition. The destructive democratic theory of the day was old, but the constructive democratic theory as worked out in the state governments was the product of new conditions.

By way of summary, it may be said that the leading doctrines of the Revolutionary period were those of what is known as the Naturrecht school of political theory. They included the idea of an original state of nature, in which all men are born politically free and equal, the contractual origin of government, the sovereignty of the people, and the right of revolution against a government regarded as oppressive. The latter doctrine, in particular, was stated in the boldest and most uncompromising form, since this was the ultimate argument upon which the Revolution rested for its justification.

On the constructive side, an elective executive was substituted for hereditary monarchy, and the institution of hereditary aristocracy abolished.

1 Cf. Rudolph Treumann, Die Monarchomachen, Leipzig, 1895.