THE ENLIGHTENMENT

And its influence on the American Revolution

Enlightenment:

•New ideas about government, law, society, and peoples’ rights

•Enlightenment thinking: God created an orderly universe. The laws that make this orderly universe work can be discovered through the use of human reason.

THE 3 ENLIGHTENMENT PHILOSOPHERS YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ARE….

1) John Locke

•All people are born free and equal

•All people possess natural rights- i.e. life, liberty, property

• If the government tried to deny or take away people’s natural rights, it would be breaking The Social Contract Theory

2) Jean Jacques Rousseau

•Writes The Social Contract …. The book!

• “Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains”

•All people have the right to determine HOW they want to be governed, and WHO should govern them

•Equals… majority rule

3) Baron de Montesquieu

•Promotes the idea of dividing government into branches

•Within those branches there should be Checks and Balances so that no one branch ever becomes more powerful than another

• If one branch of government were to become too powerful- that would threaten individual natural rights and The Social Contract Theory

Enlightenment Big Idea: John Locke- Natural Rights

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Jean Jacques Rousseau- The Social Contract Theory(book), Majority Rule

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Baron de Montesquieu- Branches of Government/Check and Balances

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The cornerstones of American founding documents

Declaration of Independence

U.S. Constitution