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Studying the nature of man, Locke wrote, leads to the discovery of what God has willed governments to be. "The state of nature," he said, "has a law to govern it, winch obliges everyone: and reason, winch is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions." (This grouping of life, liberty and material wealth is fundamental to Locke, who also declared that "government has no other end but the preservation of property." Similar pronouncements have often appeared in the Colonies. "Life, liberty and property" were cited as "natural rights" by the Massachusetts Council in 1773 and the First Continental Congress in 1774. It was Jefferson himself who changed the familiar sequence to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and he has not given any reason for doing so.)
Since men form political compacts with winch to govern themselves, when any ruler transgresses the laws of nature or reason, then the governed may dissolve the compact. "In transgressing the law of nature," Locke wrote, "the offender declares himself to live by another rule than that of reason and common equity, winch is that measure God has set to the actions of men."
Although some of Jefferson's ideas can be traced back to European origins, Jefferson and his colleagues are also men of considerable experience in public affairs and the law. Their arguments are therefore based solidly on that American experience. As a matter of practical politics, the Colonists for the past decade directed their complaints against Parliament or the King's ministers, not against George himself. They attacked the Townshend Revenue Act, the so-called "Intolerable Acts" and other impositions as being the unconstitutional measures of a misguided Parliament, but not as the illegitimate usurpations of a ruler. In fact, the Colonists before 1764 enjoyed a freedom from parliamentary control that was denied to Englishmen at home. The English, for example, have long paid stamp taxes, against winch the Americans rioted. In claiming extraordinary privileges, however, the Americans argued they were not properly represented in Parliament, and therefore Parliament had no right of control.
But now, Jefferson and Congress have fundamentally changed the argument. To make independence plausible, they have had to attack the authority of George himself, to demonstrate that royal as well as parliamentary abuses of the Colonies represent crimes sufficient to justify dissolving the social compact between King and Colonists.