The Age of Enlightenment was a period where certain individuals tried to change the way people think about government. Prior to the Enlightenment, governments were ruled by a monarch with absolute power. These monarchs believed their power came directly from God. John Locke was an enlightenment thinker whose idea that people are born with natural rights, life, liberty, and property, influenced the wording of the Declaration of Independence. Charles Monstesquieu was another Enlightenment thinker who presented the idea of separation of powers. His feeling that a government should possess a legislative, executive, and judicial branch has been included in several countries constitutions. Voltaire presented the idea of religious freedom, an idea that was included in the United States Bill of Rights and the French Declaration of the rights of man and citizen.