Definition
The idea of natural rights came from Enlightenment thinkers, above all John Locke, who named life, liberty, and property. Through the 1760s most colonists claimed the rights of Englishmen, which came from English law and tradition. In 1772 Samuel Adams wrote a report for Boston's Committee of Correspondence that listed natural rights to life, liberty, and property, and in 1776 Thomas Paine called a government of their own the colonists' natural right. The Declaration of Independence then named "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" among the unalienable rights people hold from their Creator.
Why it matters on the AP exam
Because natural rights belonged to all people, English or not, colonists could use them to justify a government of their own once appeals to the rights of Englishmen had failed. That shift, from the rights of Englishmen in 1765 to natural rights in 1776, is a standard example of change over time in colonial thinking, and questions ask students to spot natural-rights language in the Declaration or in the writings of Samuel Adams and Thomas Paine. The same logic reached people the Patriots left out: Lemuel Haynes, a Black minuteman, argued around 1776 that an African had as good a right to liberty as any Englishman, and in 1781 Elizabeth Freeman won her freedom in court under the Massachusetts constitution, which declared all men "born free and equal." Questions on the Revolution's effects use such cases to show how its ideals encouraged challenges to slavery.
In the sources
“Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property.”
Connections
- John Locke: the philosopher who named life, liberty, and property as natural rights
- Declaration of Independence: it listed life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as unalienable rights
- Common Sense: Paine's 1776 pamphlet claimed self-government as a natural right
- Social contract: the idea that people form governments to protect these rights
Study it in context
Topic 3.4: Philosophical Foundations of the American Revolution Watch this part