fromtheright

TheBigZoo,

As a conservative who happens to be Christian, I would differ with your friend somewhat. Though I don't at all discount Locke's influence especially, I think that those bedrock principles were primarily handed down through English history and was part of their inheritance, especially consent of the governed, but also freedom of the press. As to the rights of man, they were defending their rights as Englishmen in the early days of the Revolution, but once a separate nation they had to find new roots for those freedoms and found it in natural law. Though I would argue that they found the source of that law largely in God, they also relied on the rationalist arguments of Locke. Here I think Russell Kirk is way off in dismissing Locke as a source of inspiration.

That said, I would challenge your friend further as to other ideas built into our Constitution, such as separation of powers, representative government, and checks and balances, federalism, etc. Though I consider myself decidedly in the conservative and mostly Christian camp as to founding sources, Peter Marshall is simply out of his mind to argue that the Founders took their inspiration for these things from the Bible. Algernon Sidney, a primary source for the Founders certainly based some of his arguments against divine right and for representative government on the Bible, but they were primarily based on classical historical sources from antiquity. Of course, they were also strongly influenced by Montesquieu, who did not derive his arguments from the Bible.