time the most religious and the most intellectually untrammeled body
of men who ever gathered to discuss political theories and measures.
Meeting under circumstances where weakness of resources compelled the
most absolute justness in their reasons for taking up arms, they must
have discussed their position from the standpoint of morality and
religion. John Adams tells us that one of the main points discussed at
the opening of the Continental Congress, when they were framing the
ultimatum which finally took the form of the Fourth Resolution was,
whether the Congress should "recur to the law of nature" as
determining the rights of America. He says that he was "very strenuous
for retaining and insisting on it," and the Resolutions show that he
succeeded, for they based the American position on the principles of
"free government" and "good government," recognized that the "consent"
of the American Colonies to Acts of the British Parliament justly
regulating the matters of common interest was a "consent from the
necessity of the case and a regard to the mutual interests of both
countries," and claimed the rights of "life, liberty and property"
without reference to the British Constitution or the American
Charters. Jefferson tells us that throughout the period of nearly two
years which intervened between the assembling of the Congress and the
promulgation of the Declaration the principles of the law of nature
and of nations set forth in the preamble were discussed, and that when
he wrote the preamble he looked at no book, but simply stated the
conclusions at which the Congress, with apparently practical
unanimity, had arrived.

But it is not necessary, it would seem, to resort to external evidence
to prove that the Declaration is based on the doctrine of the
Reformation. In several places it seems to expressly declare that the
rights claimed by America are claimed under the law of nature and of