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Philosophers
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| John Locke | John Locke lived from 1632 to 1704, he believed in the protection of individual rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He's known for "The first and second treatises on civil government. He inspired Thomas Jefferson to write the declaration |
| Baron Charles de Montesquieu | He was a famous nobleman that wrote one of the most influential books which was The Spirit of Laws, in this book he proposed separating the powers of government, so that power would not be concentrated in the hands of one person or group. |
| Thomas Hobbes | Hobbes believed that in order to keep people from destroying each other, they needed to enter a "social contract" with an absolute monarch. |
| William Blackstone | He was an Oxford Law professor and as he started he incorporated Judeo-Christian principles into his work. He had a strong belief in the Ten Commandments and that God's law was to be man's law. |
| Voltaire | His writing often incurred the wrath of the French government and the church for biting his satire of both. His most famous novel was Candide, in this book he again satirized the French government and aristocracy. |
| Jean Jacques Rosseau | His political works contained ideas that helped inspire the later leaders of the American Revolutions. In the novel Discourse of the Origins of Inequality of Mankind, he asserted that men were by nature good, but had agreed to laws and government. |
| Thomas Aquinas | He was an Italian Dominican priest and philosopher who influenced centuries of religious and academic thought. He used ancient Greek texts to explain the existence of God. |
| John Calvin | He published the novel Institutes of the Christian Religion, in this work he outlined the "doctrine of predestination" and the "doctrine of the elect" |
| Moses | The importance of the "rule of law" in the U.S. government can be traced back to the Judeo-Christian code of Moses. Moses is known for leading the Hebrew people from slavery by the Egyptians. |