What idea from enlightenment influenced the founding fathers when writing the Declaration of Independence?

John locke influenced the founding fathers

The ideas from Enlightenment that influenced the Founding Fathers when writing the Declaration of Independence were the following:

1. People are entitled to certain natural or unalieable rights.

2. The government had to protect those rights.

3. The government's legitimacy comes from the consent of the governed and it had to be accountable for the people.

4. Whenever a government failed to protect people's fundamental rights, people had the duty and righ to replace it with a new one.

Explanation:

The Declaration of Independence was a document highly influenced by Enlightenment ideas, especially those ideas developed in John Locke's "Two Treatises of Government" (1689).

In this work, Locke claimed that men were by nature free and equal, but with the purpose to interact in a healthy society, it was necessary that they transferred some of their rights to a government in a "Social Contract". Under that contract, the government had to be elected by the people and had to protect people's natural rights to life, liberty, and property. However, whenever the government failed to do so, people had the authority to abolish it and replace it.

Similarly, in the Declaration of Independence, the Thirteen American colonies unanimously declared independence from Britain for violating the social contract, for not securing people's unalienable rights of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness (The latter being a concept said to be taken out from one of the others Locke's work). Likewise, the colonies also favored a limited government whose power had to come from the consent of the governed and that had to be accountable for people.