The American War of Independence was one of the first political upheavals in history based primarily on ideology. Subsequent history has demonstrated the importance of philosophical justification for the instigation of any radical political action of comparable ambition to the Revolution of 1776. However, in recent years the true nature of the ideas that helped fortify the American revolutionaries has come into question, with much of this controversy centering on the true origin of the concepts contained in the Declaration of Independence. Calvinism and the Declaration of Independence seeks to investigate whether the political traditions of the United States were entirely products of the Enlightenment or of the wider Calvinistic-Reformed-Puritan traditions of England and her American colonies. While the Reformed tradition of the Anglo-American culture may not take exclusive credit for the ideological traditions that influenced the Revolution in the colonies, its influence was great.