Relation+to+Declaration

The Leviathan has many subtle relations to the United States Declaration of Independence.

//"When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands ... That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government..."// -Declaration of Independence

This idea, that governments are responsible for their actions and that their power is derived from the consent of the people, is one of Hobbes' main ideas. This idea, which was unheard of in the age before the enlightenment, was responsible for the American Revolution. Although Hobbes did not agree with rebelling against your ruler, the idea of the social contract with the ruler is one of his most important points in the Leviathan. However, his ideas of the social contract were revised by later philosophers to include the right of the people to rebel and install a new type of government. His ideas were extremely influential in establishing the revolution, and also his ideas have impacted other revolutions around the world, such as that of the French and the English in the Glorious Revolution.

In Chapter XIV of the Leviathon, Hobbes writes that "every man ought to endeavour peace...and when he cannot obtain it, he may seek and use all helps and advantages of war". Many Americans were reluctant revolutionaries and would have rather had peaceful negotiations with Britain to ease their prominent problems, like taxation without representation, instead of jumping into a full-scale war. When Americans realized they could not obtain peace the Declaration of Independance, a list of grievances toward Britain and King George the III, was drawn out and used to declare war.

Hobbes believed in the concept of liberty for all, but he argued that there were certain times where man had to "//renounceth or passeth away his right //". Basically, Hobbes' main point is that men have the right to liberty, but also the right to give up that liberty. If they give up that liberty, they can enter a contract with another.

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself." - James Madison in the __Federalist Papers__