Enlightenment philosophers such as John Locke then started to question the role of government, and a powerful new idea was born: that governments might exist in order to bring happiness to their people. This astonishing notion helped to incite the American Revolution of 1776, and the new nation cemented such principles into its Declaration of Independence: ‘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.’
