ature rather than from the state
was generally entertained by the Puritans and other dissenters from
the Established Church, and was invoked by them to some extent as
justifying the revolution of 1640. The doctrine also passed over to
the Puritan Colonies in America and early found some expression there.
In the Massachusetts "Body of Liberties" of 1641 there is a suggestion
that the liberties, etc., therein recited, were those demanded by
"humanity, civility and christianity" rather than "accustomed"
liberties. It was further asserted that these liberties were to be
enjoyed by the people of the Colony and their posterity forever.

The later disputes as to the proper limits of the power of the British
King and Parliament over the American Colonies led the colonial
lawyers and politicians to a study of the theory of natural rights
advanced by various political writers, English and Continental. It has
been said, I think with truth, that the writings of Locke, Voltaire,
Rousseau, Montesquieu, and even of Blackstone, were more widely read
and studied in America than in Europe. The brilliant writings of Tom
Paine also had great influence. The result was that the doctrine of
natural rights came to be generally accepted by the people of the
Colonies as the real foundation of their claims and the real
justification for their resistance to the objectionable acts of the
King and Parliament. In 1774 the first Continental Congress in its
Declaration of Rights declared that the people of the Colonies had
those rights by "the immutable laws of nature" as well as by their
charters and the principles of the English Constitution. Two years
later in the Declaration of Independence the representatives of the
people made no reference to their charters nor to the principles of
the English Constitution as the foundation of their claims, but based
them exclusively on the theory of natural rights. They declared: "We
hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal;
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness."

The same influences undoubtedly contributed to bring about the French
Revolution of 1789, and the theory of natural rights again found
expression in the French state papers of that period. In August of
that year, in the early stages of the Revolution, the following
"Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen" was put forth