The Importance of Self-Evident Truths

The Declaration of Independence accepted as self-evident that human beings were intrinsically valuable and the locus of sovereignty. I see the enlightenment being irreducibly embedded inside this underlying structure, which is different from the idea of progress. But it still seems to me that the enlightenment had to have an under structure that enabled it to emerge for thoseself-evident truths to be accepted universally asSelf-evident. That's something you can believe in regardless of your theological beliefs.