Which Enlightenment thinker is commonly associated with ideas that influenced Jefferson's writing?

• A. John Locke
• B. Immanuel Kant
• C. Voltaire
• D. David Hume

Answer: (A)

The main idea here is how Enlightenment thinking shaped Jefferson’s arguments about rights and government. John Locke is the thinker most closely linked to Jefferson’s writing because Locke argued that people are born with natural rights—life, liberty, and property—and that governments exist to protect these rights. If a government fails to do that, or imposes unjust control, people have the right to alter or abolish it. Jefferson mirrors this framework in the Declaration of Independence, framing political legitimacy as deriving from the consent of the governed and grounding their justification for independence in natural rights, while rephrasing Locke’s property right as the pursuit of happiness. While Kant, Voltaire, and Hume contributed to Enlightenment thought in important ways, Locke provides the direct model for the rights-based justification and social contract ideas that shape Jefferson’s writing.