@Simon Templar
I actually disagree with the - widely held - idea that American Liberty is basically founded on Lockean, i.e. the British liberal principles. Despite large similarities to Locke's political philosophy in his Second Treatise on Government there is an interesting sentence to be found in your Declaration of Independece which could never have been written by Locke. It says: "But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them [i.e. the governed] under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security." A duty to revolution against Tyranny is only a meaningful idea, if one has an objective idea of civic virtue, but that is precisely the core of the ancient republicanism. You will nowhere find such a phrase in Locke and with good reason, because Locke is a liberal and not a classical republican. Locke only speaks of the right to resistance as he compares the invasion of Government into private life with that of a robber - and killing the robber in self-defense is justified because he invades the natural right of property. Obviously the founding fathers who addded this little subordinate clause in their text to Locke's ideas were, at least in some points, the opposite of adherents to Lockean principles.
One could even go further. The right's enumerated do not include property. But property plays a very important role in Locke's theory of natural rights. Why is it left out and replaced by the pursuit of happiness? There is another point. According to the the declaration of independence, government shall be founded on such principles as "seem most likely to effect their [i.e. the governed] Savety and Happiness." That again sharply constrasts with Locke, who says in his Second Treatise on Government §124: "the great and chief end [...] of men's uniting into commonwealths [...] is the preservation of their property". That means, in liberal political theory with Locke as its prime representative, happiness is not integral to the principles of government. But it was to the founding fathers of the US. This of course is, because their documents do not really belong to the liberal tradition, but deviate from it in important points.
The american system was not solely the result of enacting Locke's political philosophy, there were other influences as well, blackstone, montesquieu, Rutherford, etc. Even from founder to founder there were significantly different ideas at work. This can be seen in the political struggles after the establishment of the country.
However, Locke was a very significant and a very direct influence. While you may not get a duty to revolt from Locke, the right of revolt spoken of is very Lockean. If you were to remove the word duty from the line you quote from the declaration, the rest of it is text book Locke.
However, it is pretty clear I think that there are numerous other influences, such as the general body of enlightenment thought. Jefferson and Franklin in particular were ardent admirers of the French enlightenment philosophers
Also, they were virtually all classically educated, which means liberal exposure to the greeks and the romans. While they may have wanted to create a new kind of government, and even a new kind of society that doesn't mean their ideas of civic virtue and good citizenship were entirely divorced from the classics.
I would agree with you that their ideas of civic virtue etc do much more reflect the ancient republic than modern anarchism etc. This is very clear because it is one of the biggest questions they faced. How do we create this new republic in which people are free to not be involved.. while yet maintaining civic virtue and having people be good citizens?
Montesquieu addressed this question partially with religion and he argued that protestant Christianity, or possibly stoicism, would be the religions best suited to drive people to be good citizens even when they don't have to be.
This is why there often seems to be an almost split personality with some of the founder's views on religion. Several of them (such as Franklin and Jefferson) were not traditional Christians at all, and were either deists, or deistic christians.. yet even those like Franklin who were avowedly not Christian, believed, and clearly stated that Christian moral virtue was essential to being a good citizen. Some even went so far as to say that it was a civic virtue to elect Christians.
As I said before, self interest and commerce were also important, infact essential, to driving people to be active citizens.
The duty of revolt, however, I woul argue, comes not from the idea of civic virtue, but rather of inalienable rights. Inalienable rights can not be taken away.. but they also can not be given away except under special circumstances.
Thus if a person has the inalienable right of liberty, he can not give up that right. It would be a moral evil to do so. In the development of rights theory, all inalienable rights derived from duties that man owed to God. Man owes a duty to God to live a certain way, the result is that every man has a right to be free to live as he determines best because he is trying to fulfill his duty to God (wether he does well or not is not the issue, because if you have a right to fulfill a duty, you have the right to fail as well.
No government has the right to tell you how God wants you to live your life, thus no government has the right to abridge your right of liberty. Further, if you allow a government to do so, you are committing an essentially immoral act.
The caveat to this is that a higher duty can over-ride a lower one. For the highest duty is to love God, the second is to love your neighbor. Thus I can give up my right of life, if by so doing, I fulfill my duty of love to God, or to my neighbor.
On Original Sin,
The phrase original sin can be a little loaded because it usually refers to a specific version of the doctrine held by Augustine and the western Churches (because of Augustine).
The eastern view is a little different, but still has the same basic foundation as "original sin". Both views are based on the idea of the fallen nature. Both agree than man is born in a fallen state and suffers from the effects of fallenness until he is regenerated through Jesus Christ. The main differences between the two are in terms of what exactly the effects of the fallen nature are.
Even here, the two views really agree for the most part in concept, they just phrase things differently.
For example, in the western view most would say that man's nature is twisted irresistably towards sin so we can not stop sinning, we can not stop being evil, and we can't really do good. However, virtually all in the west would admit that while our nature is twisted towards sin, we still retain the image of God, albeit in a marred, broken sense. Thus we are still capable of 'good actions' in a sense because we still reflect God in a sense.
In the east they would say that man's nature is not twisted towards sin irresistably, but rather that man's fallen state is mortality. You are not compelled to do evil, nor are you compelled not to do good. However, no matter what you do, you are mortal, and subject to death unless you partake in the life of God through Jesus Christ.
