Jefferson acknowledged as much in the Declaration. The “truths” which he declared to be “self-evident,” that all men were “created equal” and were “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” and that “to secure these rights” governments were “instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” were not a description of fact. This was a statement of faith, or, as Jefferson and his colleagues saw it, a statement of reason deduced from nature. Locke’s philosophy, although it claimed to be based on empirical observation, was on some critical issues
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