This upcoming Fourth of July, our nation will celebrate the 243rd anniversary of the adaptation of the Declaration of Independence by the Second Continental Congress. This document, composed by Thomas Jefferson, paved the way for American independence from Great Britain and the eventual ratification of the United States Constitution.

And yet, not even independence could separate the newly formed United States from its profoundly British political and intellectual roots. It is, after all, no secret that the minds of the Founding Fathers and the documents which they penned were acutely influenced by the British Enlightenment and the works of authors such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. The Declaration of Independence’s call for the defense of the individual’s right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” for example, directly mirrors Locke’s Two Treatises of Government.