Answer: THOMAS JEFFERSON
Explanation/details:
In preparing the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson and the American patriots were asserting their right to govern themselves and throw off the government of the British monarchy. The American founding fathers got ideas like this from the Enlightenment philosopher John Locke. According to Locke's view, a government's power to govern comes from the consent of the people themselves -- those who are to be governed. In his Second Treatise on Civil Government, Locke argued for the rights of the people to create their own governments according to their own desires and for the sake of protecting their own life, liberty, and property. This also meant the right to change a government if the existing government did not protect those rights.
In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson offered a list of "facts to be submitted to a candid world" to demonstrate that the British king had been seeking to establish "an absolute Tyranny over these States" (the colonial states which were declaring their independence). Revolution was justified, in the view taken by the colonists, if it could be shown that the British government was acting in tyrannical ways toward the colonies.
As noted by the Library of Congress file for the Declaration of Independence:
- On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia in the Pennsylvania State House (now Independence Hall), approved the Declaration of Independence, severing the colonies' ties to the British Crown.
