How did the writings of john Locke and baron de Montesquieu influence ideas about government on what in what became the United States

The application of ideas about equality, natural rights, and a social contract between a government and its people.

John Locke was a political philosopher who wrote on the necessity of the separation of powers in government as well as the necessity of revolution in overthrowing unjust government. These two values had an enormous impact on both the Declaration of Independence and also the American Constitution. Montesquieu was also an important philosophical thinker who wrote on the value in the separation of powers between the executive, legislative, and judiciary. In addition Montesquieu believed in the creation of a system of checks and balances between the branches of government which also greatly influenced the writing of the American Constitution and the creation of the U. S. Government.