It is no secret that John Locke heavily influenced the language Thomas Jefferson chose for our Declaration of Independence.  But when Locke taught that our God-given rights included, “life, liberty, and personal property” Jefferson chose to change this last right to “the pursuit of happiness.”  But this right to property is at the heart of our nation’s founding.  Locke established that private property is absolutely essential for liberty: “every Man has a Property in his own Person. This no Body has any Right to but himself. The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his.” He continues: “The great and chief end therefore, of Mens uniting into Commonwealths, and putting themselves under Government, is the Preservation of their Property.”  In this third section of our study, Stossell relates property to prosperity.