The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom
...yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present, or to narrow its operation, such act shall be an infringement of natural right.
The doctrine of natural or inalienable rights, is also present in Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. This term underscores the influence of the Enlightenment philosophy of Locke and Rouseau, who developed the idea of natural rights, on Jefferson and the other American revolutionaries.
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