What was the impact of the Enlightenment on colonial society in America?

The Enlightenment gave the colonies the philosophical underpinnings to oppose British rule and establish their own country. For example, John Locke's Second Treatise on Government makes many of the same claims as the colonists later used in declaring their independence.
Enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke based human rights on the idea of natural law, which argues that humans have a God-given right to liberty and the pursuit of self interest or happiness. He contended that people give up some of these rights to enter into civil society and gain the protection of the government. However, Locke also stated that humans have an innate right to rebel against and throw off a government that becomes too tyrannous, violating the rights of the populace.
Men such as Thomas Jefferson used this line of thought to justify breaking away from the British to set up an independent nation. For example, The Declaration of Independence borrowed from Enlightenment thinking when it states that governments derive their "just powers from the consent of the governed" and offers a list of grievances which the writers argued showed King George III's "absolute tyranny" over the colonies. Without an Enlightenment sense that they had "natural rights," including a right to reject an unacceptable government, it might have been much harder to justify rebellion against Great Britain.