Enlightenment ideas and their influence on the American Revolution and U.S. government formation

¶ … Enlightenment Influenced American Revolution and Formation of U.S. Government

How did the ideas of the Enlightenment influence the American Revolution and the formation of the American Government?

The Enlightenment is often defined as a time in which rationality, as opposed to superstition, and science, as opposed to religion and a blind adherence to custom and dogma, was elevated in the estimation of European intellectuals. One of the foundational concepts of the Enlightenment is what came to be known as the ideal of 'inalienable human rights.' This was the belief that human beings had certain rights and a certain integrity from which they could not be deprived -- not by a sovereign, church, or legislature. When a sovereign threatened those rights, and provided citizens with no ability to appeal the leader's decisions, the citizens had the right to rebel, given that their leader had broken his social contract with the people. The Enlightenment notion of inalienable rights, and the idea that human beings voluntarily cede some of their rights for the protection of a social contract, as opposed to relying upon the mercy of a benevolent king to survive, gave birth to the American Revolution. Enlightenment ideals are still present within our constitutional system today.

During the Enlightenment, religious and political norms were subjected to the scrutiny of individuals such as the British philosopher John Locke. Locke asserted that all human beings have an unalterable right to life, liberty, and property -- words echoed in Thomas Jefferson's "Declaration of Independence" although the word 'property' was substituted with the phrase 'pursuit of happiness,' to further intensify the sense that the British king had violated the human integrity of the colonists.

Central to the American Founding Father's defense of the American Revolution was Locke's notion that governments were based upon social contracts between the sovereign leader and his or her people, and when those contracts were broken, individuals had the right to rebel. Before, the concept of 'divine right' or the idea that the king had a divine as well as a mortal body that upheld God's authority on earth was accepted throughout Europe. However, the English, bloodless revolution that reorganized the British government under a moderate Protestant monarch (versus an unpopular Catholic king) had caused many Englishmen to question this doctrine. For George II to use his unquestioned authority to demand obedience from the colonists flew in the face of such concepts and the colonists used the ideas of British philosophers such as Locke to oppose the British sovereign.

Because of the wording of the "Declaration of Independence," Locke is perhaps the most famous Enlightenment influence upon the Founding Fathers. However, a number of Continental Enlightenment philosophers had great influence upon the shape of the new nation: "Jean-Jacques Rousseau…distrusted the aristocrats not out of a thirst for change but because he believed they were betraying decent traditional values…Rousseau argued that inequality was not only unnatural, but that -- when taken too far -- it made decent government impossible" (Brians 2002). The French philosopher Voltaire's irreverent attitude towards religion and Rousseau's scrupulous belief in the integrity of the 'natural' man, untouched by law and custom, is reflected in the Founding Founders' notions of a society that was based upon a rule of law, rather than upon the whims of a leader. Rights rather than birthright were to govern the new American state.

The philosopher of criminology Beccaria's influence should not be underestimated, either, upon the shaping of the new nation. Beccaria believed in the malleability of human nature: laws could be used to shape human being's decision-making. Crime and punishment could be educational, rather than harshly brutal. Punishment should not be used to keep people in line through fear: punishment must be certain, swift, but proportionate. These ideas were later reflected in the U.S. Constitutional prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment (Hoffman 2002).