Jefferson's political theory was that of Locke, whose words the Declaration echoes. Uncritical critics have repeated John Adams's assertion that its arguments were hackneyed: so they undoubtedly were--in Congress, and probably little less so without,--but that is certainly pre-eminent among its great merits. As Madison said, "The object was to assert, not to discover truths." Others have echoed Rufus Choate's phrase, that the Declaration is made up of "glittering and sounding generalities of natural right." In truth, its long array of "facts ... submitted to a candid world" had its basis in the whole development of the relations between England and the colonies; every charge had point in a definite reference to historical events, and appealed primarily to men's reason; but the history is to-day forgotten, while the fanciful basis of the "compact" theory does not appeal to a later age. It should be judged, however, by its purpose and success in its own time. The "compact" theory was always primarily a theory of political ethics, a revolutionary theory, and from the early middle ages to the French Revolution it worked with revolutionary power. It held up an ideal. Its ideal of "equality" was not realized in America in 1776--nor in England in 1688--but no man knew this better than Jefferson. Locke disclaimed for him in 1690[3] the shallower misunderstandings still daily put upon his words. Both Locke and Jefferson wrote simply of political equality, political freedom. Even within this limitation, the idealistic formulas of both were at variance with the actual conditions of their time. The variance would have been greater had their phrases been applied as humanitarian formulas to industrial and social conditions. The Lockian theory fitted beautifully the question of colonial dependence, and was applied to that by America with inexorable logic; it fitted the question of individual political rights, and was applied to them in 1776, but not in 1690; it did not apply to non-political conditions of individual liberty, a fact realized by many at the time--and it is true that such an application would have been more inconsistent in America in 1776 as regards the negroes than in England in 1690 as regarded freemen. Beyond this, there is no pertinence in the stricture that the Declaration is made up of glittering generalities of natural right. Its influence upon American legal and constitutional development has been profound. Locke, says Leslie Stephen, popularized "a convenient formula for enforcing the responsibility of governors"--but his theories were those of an individual philosopher--while by the Declaration a state, for the first time in history, founded its life on democratic idealism, pronouncing governments to exist for securing the happiness of the people, and to derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. It was a democratic instrument, and the revolution a democratic movement; in