The Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of Independence was written by Thomas Jefferson in 1825. The document is not a philosophic text, but rather an expression of the American mind. It says that when you were engaged in this kind of reasoning about whether you ought to rebel against the power that's ruling over you it makes clear at the declaration that this is a judgment of prudence. In response to allegations he cribbed or plagiarized other texts such as Tom Shefferson and so on we can look elsewhere for where those principles come from.