Page:The Leveller movement; a study in the history and political theory of the English Great Civil War (IA levellermovement01peas).djvu/20

4 much of the political theory of the American revolutionary and constitutional periods had its background in English thought. And while this last idea is by no means new, the fact that a subordinate party in the Great Rebellion assumed the doctrinal position of the American Whigs in the Revolution of 1775 has hardly been emphasized. The fact that in the seventeenth-century revolution men urged the establishment of a paramount law should certainly afford us a clearer perception of the eighteenth-century revolution that finally accomplished that same end.

Furthermore, the American Revolution left embedded in American constitutional theory the principles of John Locke. The idea that God created man free of subjection to government, the idea that the laws of nature protected the safety and happiness of individuals before government began, and continued after the formation of human society to protect the individual against the tyranny of his ruler; the idea that all just government originates in the consent of the governed; all these American political theories were stated by John Locke a year after the revolution of 1688. They had been stated by the Levellers forty years earlier in the revolution of 1640–1660.

The present treatment of this subject must necessarily concern itself almost exclusively with the events and theories of 1640–1660. Space will not permit of a comparative constitutional commentary. Similarly, attempts to trace back the Leveller ideas beyond the year 1640 are im-