I just want to take a short look back, down memory lane, at what phrases like this may have meant, both before 1776, and then.
Most people, including most scholars, believe that this phrase came originally from Locke, and comments made by his contemporaries in New England and elsewhere.
That is not correct. It came from Hobbes. See: state of nature. If you look at Wikipedia only on Locke, or Jefferson, you won't actually see this point.
"Solitary poor nasty brutish and short." This is Hobbes' description of his imagined original prehistoric state of nature, where all men are created equal at the start, in that each one can theoretically kill any other one. Leviathan
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