John Locke and the American Mind

This article reopens for the purpose of closing the long-standing debate over Locke’s influence on Jefferson, the Declaration of Independence, and the formation of America’s revolutionary mind. Its aim is to shed new light with new evidence on this rather timeworn controversy. In particular, I examine the sources and purposes of the Declaration from an entirely new perspective, that is, from the perspective of Jefferson’s post-1800 contemporaries. Rather than viewing Locke’s ideas from the front end, that is, by elucidating the genealogy of ideas extending from Locke (and others) to Jefferson and the Declaration, this article examines Locke’s influence on Jefferson and the Declaration from the back end, that is, by examining how early nineteenth-century Americans viewed Locke’s influence on Jefferson and the writing of the Declaration. It should matter, after all, how Jefferson’s fellow Americans understood what the Declaration was all about.